Sensing Beyond Senses: An Overview of Outstanding Strides in Architecting Nanopolymer-Enabled Sensors for Biomedical Applications

Nano-enabled sensing is an expanding interdisciplinary field of emerging science with dynamic multifunctional detecting capabilities, equipped with a wide range of multi-faceted nanomaterial having diverse dimensions and composition. They have proven to be highly robust, sensitive, and useful diagnostic tools ranging from advanced industrial processes to ordinary consumer products. As no single nanomaterial has proved to be unparalleled, recent years has witnessed a large number of nanomaterial-based sensing strategies for rapid detection and quantification of processes and substances with a high degree of reliability. Nano-furnished platforms, because of easy fabrication methods and chemical versatility, can serve as ideal sensing means through different transduction mechanisms. This article, through a unified experimental-theoretical approach, uses literature of recent years to introduce, evaluate, and analyze significant developments in the area of nanotechnology-aided sensors incorporating the various classes of nanomaterial. Addressing the broad interests, the work also summarizes the sensing mechanisms using schematic illustrations, attempts to integrate the performance of different categories of nanomaterials in the design of sensors, knowledge gaps, regulatory aspects, future research directions, and challenges of implementing such techniques in standalone devices. In view of a dependency of analysis and testing on sustained growth of sensor-supported platforms, this article inspires the scientific community for more attention in this field.