Abstract: Sensors based on responsive photonic hydrogels have recently attracted considerable attention for visual medical diagnostics, pharmaceutical bioassays and environmental monitoring. However, the use of these promising materials for the detection of nanoparticles (NPs) has never been explored so far, although the sensing of nano-objects is a rapidly-evolving new area of research. To address this issue, we have combined the concepts of inverse opal hydrogels and nanoparticle-imprinted polymers. By this way, we could obtain a NP-imprinted photonic hydrogel, consisting in a three-dimensional, highly-ordered poly(methacrylic acid) macroporous array, where nanocavities complementary to the target NPs, here colloidal quantum dots, are distributed. This novel type of NP-imprinted photonic hydrogel sensor was shown to display a high sensitivity and selectivity, opening new prospects for the development of equipment-free and cost efficient sensing devices for NPs
Author keywords: Nanoparticles, Imprinted polymers, Photonic crystals, Inverse opals, Sensors