Recent advances in nanoplasmonic sensors for environmental detection and monitoring

The great attention in environmental pollution urges the development of innovative monitoring system enabling rapid, sensitive, specific detection and easy operation. Recent progress in nanoplasmonic sensors allowing real-time, highly-sensitive, label-free and multiplex detection provides a promising alternative to conventional environmental analyzing techniques. This review summarizes novel nanoplasmonic approaches categorized by optical detection technologies, which include surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy, dark-field nanospectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and even naked eyes. The focus of this review will be on how plasmonic nanostructures can be utilized to detect environmental pollutants, and remarkable accomplishments to enhance the detection performances. In addition, we discuss current challenge and future direction for ubiquitous environmental sensing and monitoring.