Non-invasive medical diagnostics by nanoparticle-based solid-state gas sensors

Chemical sensors made of tailored nanoparticles offer excellent miniaturization capability and are able to rapidly and continuously detect trace amounts of important analytes down to trace concentrations. Application of these sensing materials to non-invasive medical diagnostics by breath analysis has the potential to drastically reduce diagnostics costs while offering better service quality to the patients and enabling very early-stage detection of severe illnesses such as lung cancer. Here, we present a flexible approach to synthesize advanced solid-state gas sensor materials that have demonstrated reliable detection of important breath markers. In particular, the feasibility of capturing highly performing, meta-stable sensing nanoparticles by flame-synthesis of multi component metal-oxides is critically discussed.