Nanomaterials for Biosensing Applications

A biosensor is a device that detects the presence of analytes with its biological receptor entity, having unique specificities corresponding to their analytes. Most of these analytes are usually physical in nature, such as DNA, proteins, antibodies, and antigens, but they may also be simple compounds, including glucose, H2O2, toxins, and so on. Biosensors’ significance rises in providing real-time quantitative and qualitative information on analyte composition. The sensing mechanism involves the transduction of target binding interactions into optical, electrochemical signals, etc ., which can be amplified and detected.

Nanomaterials (NMs) have shown significant potential in biological sensing—these allow close interactions with target biomolecules due to their extremely small size and suitable surface modifications. Nanomaterials appear to be potential possibilities because of their capacity to immobilize a greater number of bioreceptor units in confined devices and even act as a transduction element, allowing for enhanced sensitivity and reduced detection limits down to specific molecules. Nanomaterials have been widely used for in vitro detection of disease-related molecular biomarkers and imaging, contrasts to map out the distribution of biomarkers in vivo. This chapter summarizes nanomaterials such as gold nanoparticles, quantum dots, polymeric nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, nanodiamonds, and graphene nanostructured materials that are currently being researched or utilized as biosensors.