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We have developed an electrochemical immunosensor for the detection of ultratrace amounts of aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) in food products. The sensor was based on a competitive immunoassay using horseradish peroxidase (HRP) as a tag. Magnetic nanoparticles coated with antibody (anti-AFM1) were used to separate the bound and unbound fractions. The samples containing AFM1 were incubated with a fixed amount of antibody and tracer [AFM1 linked to HRP (conjugate)] until the system reached equilibrium. Competition occurs between the antigen (AFM1) and the conjugate for the antibody. Then, the mixture was deposited on the surface of screen-printed carbon electrodes, and the mediator [5-methylphenazinium methyl sulphate (MPMS)] was added. The enzymatic response was measured amperometrically. A standard range (0, 0.005, 0.01, 0.025, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 ppb) of AFM1-contaminated milk from the ELISA kit was used to obtain a standard curve for AFM1. To test the detection sensitivity of our sensor, samples of commercial milk were supplemented at 0.01, 0.025, 0.05 or 0.1 ppb with AFM1. Our immunosensor has a low detection limit (0.01 ppb), which is under the recommended level of AFM1 [0.05 μg L-1 (ppb)], and has good reproducibility.

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In this work, a significant improvement of the classical silicon nanowire (SiNW)-based photodetector was achieved through the realization of core-shell structures using newly designed GQDs via simple solution processing. The poly(ethyleneimine) (PEI)-assisted synthesis successfully tuned both optical and electrical properties of graphene quantum dots (GQDs) to fulfill the requirements for strong yellow photoluminescence emission along with large band gap formation and the introduction of electronic states inside the band gap. The fabrication of a GQD-based device was followed by systematic structural and photoelectronic investigation. Thus, the GQD/SiNW photodetector exhibited a large photocurrent to dark current ratio (I/I up to ∼0.9 × 10 under 4 V bias) and a remarkable improvement of the external quantum efficiency values that far exceed 100%. In this frame, GQDs demonstrate the ability to arbitrate both charge-carrier photogeneration and transport inside a heterojunction, leading to simultaneous attendance of various mechanisms: (i) efficient suppression of the dark current governed by the type I alignment in energy levels, (ii) charge photomultiplication determined by the presence of the PEI-induced electron trap levels, and (iii) broadband ultraviolet-to-visible downconversion effects.