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Nanomaterials
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Nanoscale Optical Sensing
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Nanoscale Optical Sensing

A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2019) | Viewed by 22633

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Cosmin Farcau

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Interests: colloidal self-assembly; nanofabrication; plasmonics; plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy; sensing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Optical sensing based on the unique properties of nanoscale materials has recently emerged as a highly rewarding research topic both on the fundamental and practical level. The optical response of nanoscale objects is strongly dependent on their environment, which makes them highly efficient in detecting and monitoring nearby events. Specifically, by analyzing scattered, transmitted/reflected, or diffracted light using thin films, isolated nanoparticles, oligomers or arrays of nanoparticles, or 2D/3D-patterned films, one can sense molecular adsorption/interactions, changes of refractive index, temperature, pressure, humidity, or pH. Sensing based on surface plasmon resonances in metal nanostructures is one particularly hot research area, which was boosted by recent scientific breakthroughs in the field of plasmonics, and strongly backed-up by the technical advancement of nanotechnology in general.

In this Special Issue we aim to assemble a collection of up-to-date scientific findings pertaining to optical sensing based on nanoscale materials. As many challenges are still to be surpassed before the practical implementation of nanoscale optical sensors in every-day applications, a wide range of related topics may be covered, including computer simulations/theoretical investigations of plasmonic nanoscale systems for designing efficient sensors, synthesis/fabrication of colloidal nanoparticles or nanostructured films as materials for sensing, new/advanced optical sensing strategies/approaches or involved analytical aspects as a means of sensing.

By submitting original research, or review-type articles, you can contribute to helping researchers worldwide obtain an overview of the latest trends and progress in the field of “Nanoscale Optical Sensing”.

Dr. Cosmin Farcau
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nanomaterials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nanoparticles
  • resonators
  • nanofabrication
  • synthesis
  • surface
  • plasmons
  • nanophotonics
  • sensing

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 3097 KiB  
Article
Gold Nanopost-Shell Arrays Fabricated by Nanoimprint Lithography as a Flexible Plasmonic Sensing Platform
by Cosmin Farcau, Daniel Marconi, Alia Colniță, Ioana Brezeștean and Lucian Barbu-Tudoran
Nanomaterials 2019, 9(11), 1519; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano9111519 - 25 Oct 2019
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 4295
Abstract
Plasmonic noble metal nanostructured films have a huge potential for the development of efficient, tunable, miniaturized optical sensors. Herein, we report on the fabrication and characterization of gold-coated nanopost arrays, their use as refractometric sensors, and their optimization through photonics simulations. Monolithic square [...] Read more.
Plasmonic noble metal nanostructured films have a huge potential for the development of efficient, tunable, miniaturized optical sensors. Herein, we report on the fabrication and characterization of gold-coated nanopost arrays, their use as refractometric sensors, and their optimization through photonics simulations. Monolithic square nanopost arrays having different period and nanopost size are fabricated by nanoimprint lithography on polymer foils, and sputter-coated by gold films. The reflectivity of these gold nanopost-shell arrays present dips in the visible range, which are efficient for refractometric sensing. By finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations we reproduce the experimental spectra, describe the electric fields distribution around the nanopost-shells, and then explain their good sensitivity, around 450 nm/RIU. Furthermore, we determine by simulations the influence of several geometrical parameters, such as array period, nanopost width, gold film thickness, and nanopost side coverage on both reflectivity spectra and sensing capabilities. Fully coated nanoposts provide an extremely deep reflectivity minimum, approaching zero, which makes the relative reflectivity change extremely high, more than two orders of magnitude higher than for partially coated nanoposts. These results contribute to the understanding of the plasmonic properties of metal coated nanopost arrays, and to the development of efficient platforms for sensing and other surface plasmon based applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanoscale Optical Sensing)
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10 pages, 2429 KiB  
Article
Mono-6-Deoxy-6-Aminopropylamino-β-Cyclodextrin on Ag-Embedded SiO2 Nanoparticle as a Selectively Capturing Ligand to Flavonoids
by Eunil Hahm, Eun Ji Kang, Xuan-Hung Pham, Daham Jeong, Dae Hong Jeong, Seunho Jung and Bong-Hyun Jun
Nanomaterials 2019, 9(10), 1349; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano9101349 - 20 Sep 2019
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3125
Abstract
It has been increasingly important to develop a highly sensitive and selective technique that is easy to handle in detecting levels of beneficial or hazardous analytes in trace quantity. In this study, mono-6-deoxy-6-aminopropylamino-β-cyclodextrin (pr-β-CD)-functionalized silver-assembled silica nanoparticles (SiO2 [...] Read more.
It has been increasingly important to develop a highly sensitive and selective technique that is easy to handle in detecting levels of beneficial or hazardous analytes in trace quantity. In this study, mono-6-deoxy-6-aminopropylamino-β-cyclodextrin (pr-β-CD)-functionalized silver-assembled silica nanoparticles (SiO2@Ag@pr-β-CD) for flavonoid detection were successfully prepared. The presence of pr-β-CD on the surface of SiO2@Ag enhanced the selectivity in capturing quercetin and myricetin among other similar materials (naringenin and apigenin). In addition, SiO2@Ag@pr-β-CD was able to detect quercetin corresponding to a limit of detection (LOD) as low as 0.55 ppm. The relationship between the Raman intensity of SiO2@Ag@pr-β-CD and the logarithm of the Que concentration obeyed linearity in the range 3.4–33.8 ppm (R2 = 0.997). The results indicate that SiO2@Ag@pr-β-CD is a promising material for immediately analyzing samples that demand high sensitivity and selectivity of detection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanoscale Optical Sensing)
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15 pages, 2981 KiB  
Article
Study of a Broadband Difference Interferometer Based on Low-Cost Polymer Slab Waveguides
by Kazimierz Gut
Nanomaterials 2019, 9(5), 729; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano9050729 - 11 May 2019
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2831
Abstract
A model and the waveguide parameters of a broadband, polymer-based slab waveguide difference interferometer is presented in this paper. The parameters were determined based on knowledge of the dispersion in the structure materials used to fabricate the waveguide. The impact of the waveguide [...] Read more.
A model and the waveguide parameters of a broadband, polymer-based slab waveguide difference interferometer is presented in this paper. The parameters were determined based on knowledge of the dispersion in the structure materials used to fabricate the waveguide. The impact of the waveguide layer thickness, propagation path length, and change in the waveguide cover refractive index on the output signal from the system was determined. It has been shown that the direction of the maximum shifting is determined by the thickness of the waveguide layer. A relationship describing the shift in the signal extrema for a change in the waveguide cover refractive index was derived. The results show that the use of a propagation constant simplifies the description of the interferometer. Polymer waveguides, although they have a small contrast in refractive indices, allow for large shifts in the maxima of the signal. The determined shifts in the output signal extrema for polymer waveguides are comparable, and these shifts are larger for some waveguide thicknesses compared to waveguides based on Si3N4. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanoscale Optical Sensing)
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9 pages, 2976 KiB  
Article
Transmit-Array, Metasurface-Based Tunable Polarizer and High-Performance Biosensor in the Visible Regime
by Kai He, Yidong Liu and Yongqi Fu
Nanomaterials 2019, 9(4), 603; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano9040603 - 11 Apr 2019
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3639
Abstract
There are two types of metasurfaces, reflect-array and transmit-array,—which are classified on the basis of structural features. In this paper, we design a transmit-array metasurface for y-polarized incidence which is characterized by having a transmission spectrum with a narrow dip (i.e., less [...] Read more.
There are two types of metasurfaces, reflect-array and transmit-array,—which are classified on the basis of structural features. In this paper, we design a transmit-array metasurface for y-polarized incidence which is characterized by having a transmission spectrum with a narrow dip (i.e., less than 3 nm). Furthermore, a tunable polarizer is achieved using linear geometric configurations, realizing a transmittivity ratio between x- and y-polarized incidence ranging from 0.031% to 1%. Based on the narrow-band polarization sensitivity of our polarizer, a biosensor was designed to detect an environmental refractive index ranging from 1.30 to 1.39, with a factor of sensitivity S = 192 nm/RIU and figure of merit (FOM) = 64/RIU. In the case of a narrow-band feature and dips in transmission spectrums close to zero, FOM* can have a value as large as 92,333/RIU. This unique feature makes the novel transmit-array metasurface a potential market candidate in the field of biosensors. Moreover, transmit-array metasurfaces with lossless materials offer great convenience by means of detecting either the reflectance spectrum or the transmission spectrum. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanoscale Optical Sensing)
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Review

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19 pages, 3838 KiB  
Review
Recent Advances and Perspectives of Molecularly Imprinted Polymer-Based Fluorescent Sensors in Food and Environment Analysis
by Guangyang Liu, Xiaodong Huang, Lingyun Li, Xiaomin Xu, Yanguo Zhang, Jun Lv and Donghui Xu
Nanomaterials 2019, 9(7), 1030; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano9071030 - 18 Jul 2019
Cited by 75 | Viewed by 7304
Abstract
Molecular imprinting technology (MIT), also known as molecular template technology, is a new technology involving material chemistry, polymer chemistry, biochemistry, and other multi-disciplinary approaches. This technology is used to realize the unique recognition ability of three-dimensional crosslinked polymers, called the molecularly imprinted polymers [...] Read more.
Molecular imprinting technology (MIT), also known as molecular template technology, is a new technology involving material chemistry, polymer chemistry, biochemistry, and other multi-disciplinary approaches. This technology is used to realize the unique recognition ability of three-dimensional crosslinked polymers, called the molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). MIPs demonstrate a wide range of applicability, good plasticity, stability, and high selectivity, and their internal recognition sites can be selectively combined with template molecules to achieve selective recognition. A molecularly imprinted fluorescence sensor (MIFs) incorporates fluorescent materials (fluorescein or fluorescent nanoparticles) into a molecularly imprinted polymer synthesis system and transforms the binding sites between target molecules and molecularly imprinted materials into readable fluorescence signals. This sensor demonstrates the advantages of high sensitivity and selectivity of fluorescence detection. Molecularly imprinted materials demonstrate considerable research significance and broad application prospects. They are a research hotspot in the field of food and environment safety sensing analysis. In this study, the progress in the construction and application of MIFs was reviewed with emphasis on the preparation principle, detection methods, and molecular recognition mechanism. The applications of MIFs in food and environment safety detection in recent years were summarized, and the research trends and development prospects of MIFs were discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanoscale Optical Sensing)
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