Ultrathin Electrochemical Chemo- and Biosensors

The traditional concept of biological sensors, based on enzymatic receptors and potentiometric or amperometric transducers has undergone several genera­ tions of development. Such types of biosensors have been extensively reviewed, described in many textbooks and commercialized. This book is focused on alternative types of chemical and biological sensors or sensor-like structures and approaches, exploring electrical or electrochemical signal detection. Spe­ cial attention is paid to applications of linear and nonlinear impedance. Some basic ideas in this field are very old - first described, for example, in the classi­ cal work by Warburg at the end of the 19th century. Later impedance spectrosco­ py became a popular approach for studying adsorption of organic molecules on polarizable metal electrodes. However, analytical applications of this approach have only been developed over the last decade, after the establishment of the technology of self-assembled monolayers. In that time, when many scientists were disappointed with attempts to use the Langmuir-Blodgett technique for manufacturing electrochemical devices, the self-assembled monolayers became a viable technology for immobilization of organic molecules on electrodes and for the formation of covalently stabilized receptor layers and even more sophis­ ticated organic nano- and microstructures. This resulted in the development of numerous analytical applications of impedometric methods which are the main topic of the present book. The book consists of four parts.