Pet Sensors

Abstract

Molecular recognition is one of the important fields in supramolecular chemistry.1 Given any substrate (molecule, cation or anion), the supramolecular approach is that an appropriate receptor, possessing structural and chemical features suitable for recognition of that substrate, can be designed. In the supramolecular molecular recognition system, receptor molecules bearing photosensitive groups may display marked modification of their photophysical properties upon binding to their substrate species, leading to changes in their light absorption or emission features and allowing their detection by spectroscopic measurements. They represent molecular devices for substrate-selective optical signal generation and optical reading-out of the recognition process. Such photochemical sensors make it possible to develop sensitive analytical methods for the detection of a specific substrate. The design of fluorescent sensors is of major importance because of the high demand in analytical chemistry, clinical biochemistry, medicine, the environment, etc.2, 3