Electrically Transduced Sensors Based on Nanomaterials (2012-2016)

While chemiresistors, chemFET, and electrochemical sensors have been known for decades, nanomaterials have expanded the capabilities of these devices, pushing detection limits down, speeding up response and recovery, and stretching the dynamic range. New nanomaterials have had a weaker impact on selectivity, which is often dictated by receptors that can be dopant molecules, antibodies, or nucleic acids or a second nanomaterial that is mated to the first. While new nanomaterials have "super-charged" sensitivity, have accelerated response and recovery, and provided a means for miniaturization of sensor architectures for the analytical chemist, selectivity remains a significant challenge for the design of chemical and biological sensors. A review covers the advances in chemical and biological sensors that are based upon nanowires, including detection of vapors and gases (toluene, benzene, and NO2 ); nanotubes (polymer nanotubes); nanoparticles (polymer nanostructures); and other types of nanostructures described in papers published from 2012 to 2016.