Fluorescence based sensor arrays

Abstract

Fluorescence-based cross reactive sensor arrays have experienced significant development in the last decade because of the advantages that they can offer with respect to other transduction mechanisms, in terms of the usual performance parameters such as sensitivity, selectivity and so on. From this point of view, a great impulse to this development has been due to the realization of novel transduction platforms, which has also taken advantage of the development of consumer electronics such as digital scanners, cameras, and screens, allowing the realization of low cost sensing layers suitable for many practical applications. This possibility, combined with continuous optimization of sensing material properties, the possible preparation of arrays with a high number of individual sensing elements and pattern recognition data analysis, has led to novel opportunities for the creation of luminescence based sensor arrays with improved capabilities. Herein we report on the development of these devices witnessed in the last decade, dividing the developed devices according to their exploitation in gaseous or in solution phase. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.