Reviews & Analysis

In this article, we review recent progress in the rapidly developing area of biomolecular interaction detection with excellent selectivity and ultrahigh sensitivity, such as DNA-DNA hybridization, DNA-protein interaction, protein function, and cellular activity, using FET-based biosensors based on the carbon nanomaterials single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and graphenes. We also summarize some current challenges the scientific community is facing, including device-to-device heterogeneity and the lack of system integration for uniform device array mass-production.

Nonvolatile memory devices based on hybrid inorganic/organic nanocomposites have emerged as excellent candidates for promising applications in next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices because of their advantages of high-mechanical flexibility, simple fabrication and low cost. As shown in the figure, the resistive switching of a nanocomposite sandwiched between two electrodes enables the cross-point where A and B cross to work as a memory cell for data storage. To date, various nanomaterials and device structures have been developed to optimize the memory properties of hybrid nanocomposites.

Forming nanomaterials into hierarchic and organized structures is a rational way of preparing advanced functional materials. The term nanoarchitectonics can express this innovation. This review focuses on recent researches to develop functional materials by forming nanomaterials into organized structures, especially in well-ordered layered structural motifs. This layered nanoarchitectonics can be achieved by using the versatile technology of layer-by-layer assembly. Reassembly of bulk materials into novel layered structures through layered nanoarchitectonics has created many innovative functional materials in a wide variety of fields as can be seen in ferromagnetic nanosheets, sensors, flame-retardant coatings, transparent conductors, electrodes and transistors, walking devices, drug release surfaces, targeting drug carriers and cell culturing.

Recent developments in advanced semiconductor nanomaterials and methods for their assembly establish new, important capabilities in flexible and stretchable electronics and optoelectronics. This review describes the most successful materials, mechanics and manufacturing strategies, and illustrates their use in bio-integrated devices designed for basic measurements of cellular electrophysiology and multimodal sensing suitable for clinical applications. Opportunities span a variety of biomedical applications including skin-based, neural, and cardiovascular monitoring and therapy.

Life is a multiscale chiral system, which ingeneously combine small chiral biomolecules to biomacromolecules with special stereo-conformations and functions via chemical bonding and weak chemical interactions, for example, hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions, which further assemble to build up macroscopic biological entities showing distinct assymetric characteristics, for example, right-handed conches and so on. This brings much inspiration to construct artificial systems being able to transform chiral signals to macroscopic properties of materials based on chirality-responsive polymers, which find broad applications in various domains of chemical engineering, industry, biology and medicine.