Color me sensitive: amplification and discrimination in photonic silicon nanostructures.

A new paper in this issue discusses some of the considerations for fabrication of biosensor devices in the porous silicon material system. The results focus on optical detection of protease activity on specific substrates that have been immobilized in a porous silicon matrix. Solutions to important limitations of porous microsensors are presented: stabilizing the sensor against corrosion-induced zero point drift, minimizing the effects of nonspecific protein binding, and enhancing the optical response by incorporation of a catalytic reaction in the sensing scheme.