Prospects of polymers in sensor technology

Recently polymers have attracted much interest in the development of sensors. One of the main reasons for application of polymers in sensor technology is that these interesting materials exhibit full range of properties from insulator to superconductor. Polymeric sensor shall enhance the quality control in industrial processes; point of care measurement will be feasible. Any polymeric sensor consists of a sensor layer with chemical/ physical interactions to the analyte and transducer, which transforms a physical effect into an electronic output. Because of this reason the development of modern sensor system demands the interactions of research groups with complimentary research experience. These areas of research are rapidly evolving from physics, chemistry, biology, electronics and information technology. There is an urgent need of polymer-based sensor for medical diagnostic industry, environmental monitoring, food industries and telecommunication industry. There are two main broad areas of polymeric sensors; conducting polymers based sensors and insulating polymer-based sensors. The present paper highlights the overview of polymeric sensors and their current trends of research.