Non-Specific Responsive Nanogels and Plasmonics to Design MathMaterial Sensing Interfaces: The Case of a Solvent Sensor

Abstract

The combination of non-specific deformable nanogels and plasmonic optical probes provides an innovative solution for specific sensing using a generalistic recognition layer. Soft polyacrylamide nanogels that lack specific selectivity but are characterized by responsive behavior, i.e., shrinking and swelling dependent on the surrounding environment, were grafted to a gold plasmonic D-shaped plastic optical fiber (POF) probe. The nanogel–POF cyclically challenged with water or alcoholic solutions optically reported the reversible solvent-to-phase transitions of the nanomaterial, embodying a primary optical switch. Additionally, the non-specific nanogel–POF interface exhibited more degrees of freedom through which specific sensing was enabled. The real-time monitoring of the refractive index variations due to the time-related volume-to-phase transition effects of the nanogels enabled us to determine the environment’s characteristics and broadly classify solvents. Hence the nanogel–POF interface was a descriptor of mathematical functions for substance identification and classification processes. These results epitomize the concept of responsive non-specific nanomaterials to perform a multiparametric description of the environment, offering a specific set of features for the processing stage and particularly suitable for machine and deep learning. Thus, soft MathMaterial interfaces provide the ground to devise devices suitable for the next generation of smart intelligent sensing processes.