A sensor can be called ideal or perfect if it is enriched with certain characteristics viz., superior detections range, high sensitivity, selectivity, resolution, reproducibility, repeatability, and response time with good flow. Recently, biosensors made of nanoparticles (NPs) have gained very high popularity due to their excellent applications in nearly all the fields of science and technology. The use of NPs in the biosensor is usually done to fill the gap between the converter and the bioreceptor, which is at the nanoscale. Simultaneously the uses of NPs and electrochemical techniques have led to the emergence of biosensors with high sensitivity and decomposition power. This review summarizes the development of biosensors made of NPssuch as noble metal NPs and metal oxide NPs, nanowires (NWs), nanorods (NRs), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), quantum dots (QDs), and dendrimers and their recent advancement in biosensing technology with the expansion of nanotechnology.

In the present work, the case of a spherical quantum dot with parabolic confinement subjected to an external electric field with the presence of an impurity, the linear and third-order nonlinear optical absorption coefficients as well as refractive index changes have been calculated. The numerical method we are using for the calculation of the energy levels and the corresponding wave functions is the potential morphing method in the effective mass approximation. As our results indicate an increase of the electric field and/or the position of the impurity and/or the quantum dot radius redshifts the peak positions of the total absorption coefficient and total refractive index changes. Additionally, an increase of the position of the impurity and/or the quantum dot radius decreases the total absorption coefficient and increases the total refractive index changes. An increase also of the electric field decreases the total absorption coefficient but does not significantly affect the peak values of the total refractive index changes. Finally, an increase of the optical intensity considerably changes the total absorption coefficient as well as the total refractive index changes.

The size-dependent band gap of semiconductor quantum dots is a well-known and widely studied quantum confinement effect. In order to understand the size-dependent band gap, different theoretical approaches have been adopted, including the effective-mass approximation with infinite or finite confinement potentials, the tight-binding method, the linear combination of atomic orbitals method, and the empirical pseudopotential method. In the present work we calculate the size-dependent band gap of colloidal quantum dots using a recently developed method that predicts accurately the eigenstates and eigenenergies of nanostructures by utilizing the adiabatic theorem of quantum mechanics. We have studied various semiconductor (CdS, CdSe, CdTe, PbSe, InP, and InAs) quantum dots in different matrices. The theoretical predictions are, in most cases, in good agreement with the corresponding experimental data. In addition, our results indicate that the height of the finite-depth well confining potential is independent of the specific semiconductor of the quantum dot and exclusively depends on the matrix energy-band gap by a simple linear relation.

We study the effects of excitons in nonlinear optical rectification in one-dimensional semiparabolic quantum dots. We consider the cases that the electron and the hole are confined in semiparabolic potentials (i) with the same oscillator frequency and (ii) with the same width. In the first case we present approximate analytical results in the strong confinement regime and find a closed-form relation between the nonlinear optical rectification coefficient of an exciton and the nonlinear optical rectification coefficient when only one electron exists in the structure. In the second case we use the Hartree-Fock approximation and the potential morphing method and present results for the nonlinear optical rectification coefficient in all confinement regimes.

Recent advancement in nanoscience and nanotechnology has witnessed numerous triumphs of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanomaterials due to their various exotic and multifunctional properties and wide applications. As a remarkable and functional material, ZnO has attracted extensive scientific and technological attention, as it combines different properties such as high specific surface area, biocompatibility, electrochemical activities, chemical and photochemical stability, high-electron communicating features, non-toxicity, ease of syntheses, and so on. Because of its various interesting properties, ZnO nanomaterials have been used for various applications ranging from electronics to optoelectronics, sensing to biomedical and environmental applications. Further, due to the high electrochemical activities and electron communication features, ZnO nanomaterials are considered as excellent candidates for electrochemical sensors. The present review meticulously introduces the current advancements of ZnO nanomaterial-based chemical sensors. Various operational factors such as the effect of size, morphologies, compositions and their respective working mechanisms along with the selectivity, sensitivity, detection limit, stability, etc., are discussed in this article.