Frontiers in Chemical Sensors: Novel Principles and Techniques (Springer Series on Chemical Sensors and Biosensors, Volume 3)

For all customers who have a standing order to Springer Series on Chemical Sensors and Biosensors, we offer the electronic version via SpringerLink free of charge. Please contact your librarian who can receive a password or free access to the full articles by registering at: springerlink.com If you do not have a subscription, you can still view the tables of contents of the volumes and the abstract of each article by going to the SpringerLink Homepage, clicking on "Browse by Online Libraries", then "Chemical Sciences", and finally choose Springer Series on Chemical Sensors and Biosensors. You will find information about the -Editorial Board -Aims and Scope -Instructions for Authors -Sample Contribution at springeronline.com using the search function. X Preface waveguides. The book ends with three chapters concentrating on applications -dealing with pressure-sensitive luminescent paints, optical sensing of enantiomers and the amazing use of digital colour analysis for ions and protein monitoring. All these novel optosensing principles and techniques dramatically increase the analytical power of the current chemical sensors allowing us to predict a promising future for such devices in the years to come. This monograph is aimed at graduate students in chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, and material science, as well as researchers and technologists in academic and industrial environments who want to keep abreast of the latest trends in chemical sensing and biosensing with photonic devices. The contributing authors are recognised experts in their respective fields so that, in addition to providing an authoritative overview of each selected topic and the advances therein, they have been able to convey to the reader first-hand information and experimental results from their own research and developments. Therefore, the Editors would like to acknowledge and gratefully thank the effort and enthusiasm of all the authors who have provided outstanding, exquisite manuscripts to constitute the present new volume of Springer Series on Optical Chemical Sensors and Biosensors. In Spanish, there is a saying which says it is impossible to make a gate to the countryside, in the same way, it is certainly difficult to define frontiers in the optical sensing field. However, we hope the contents of this book will guide the reader through the novel principles and techniques that are setting the pace in the advances in our continuously evolving field. With their similarity to the organs of the most advanced creatures that inhabit the Earth, sensors are regarded as being the “senses of electronics”: arti?cial eyes and ears that are capable of seeing and hearing beyond the range of - man perception; electronic noses and tongues that can recognise odours and ?avours without a lifetime training; touch that is able not only to feel the texture and temperature of the materials but even to discern their chemical compo- tion. Among the world of chemical sensors, optical devices (sometimes termed “optodes”, from the Greek “the optical way”) have reached a prominent place in those areas where the features of light and of the light-matter interaction show their advantage: contactless or long-distance interrogation, detection sensitivity, analyte selectivity, absence of electrical interference or risks, and lack of analyte consumption, to name just a few. The introduction of optical ?bres and integrated optics has added more value to such sensing since now light can be con?ned and readily carried to dif?cult-to-reach locations, higher information density can be transported, indicator dyes can be immobilised at the distal end or the evanescent ?eld for unique chemical and biochemical sensing (including multiplexed and distributed measurements), optical s- sors can now be subject to mass production and novel sensing schemes have been established (interferometric, surface plasmon resonance, ?uorescence energy transfer, supramolecular recognition . . . ).

This third volume of Springer Series on Chemical Sensors and Biosensors aims to enable the researcher or technologist to become acquainted with the latest principles and techniques that keep on enlarging the applications in this fascinating field. It deals with the novel luminescence lifetime-based techniques for interrogation of sensor arrays in high-throughput screening, cataluminescence, chemical sensing with hollow waveguides, new ways in sensor design and fabrication by means of either combinatorial methods or engineered indicator/support couples.

In addition, the volume focusses on frontiers in analytical biosensing, DNA optosensors and gold nanoparticle-based assays. Further chapters include pressure-sensitive luminescent paints, optical sensing of enantiomers and the use of digital colour analysis for ions and protein monitoring.

Aims to enable the researcher or technologist to become acquainted with the principles and techniques that keep on enlarging the applications. This volume focusses on frontiers in analytical biosensing, DNA optosensors and gold nanoparticle-based assays and deals with the novel luminescence lifetime-based techniques.