Photoactive Nanomaterials for Sensing Trace Analytes in Biological Samples

The emerging field of nanotechnology has provided several revolutionary photoactive nanomaterials as labeling reagents for ultrasensitive and accurate determination of trace amounts of target analytes in biological samples. Currently, different types of photoactive nanomaterials have been developed, which include quantum dots, PEBBLEs, polymer fluorescent nanoparticles, silica fluorescent nanoparticles, metal nanoparticles, etc. All of these nanosensing substrates have demonstrated excellent signaling characteristics and high photostability for a wide variety of photoluminescent, photoabsorent, and photodispersive assays. This review focuses mainly on some recent applications of these nanomaterials for sensitive determination of trace analytes in biological samples.