To date, environmental and healthcare problems have been the most important and challenging issues globally. Demands for rapid and inexpensive sensors for environmental monitoring, point-of-care diagnosis, and regulatory control of food and water safety are booming, especially in the underdeveloped regions. Advancements of nanotechnology in the past decade provide us with a wide range of nanomaterials. Combined with state-of-the-art nanophotonics and microfluidics, the nanomaterials triggered the development of transformative sensing technologies, such as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, label-free biosensors, and multiplexed DNA/protein microarrays for the applications not accessible by traditional approaches.

This special issue is dedicated to synthesis, fabrication, characterization, and numerical modeling of nanomaterials and nanostructures with potential applications in life science researches, environment monitoring, explosives trace detection, food safety control, and so on.

We welcome reviews and original research papers (experimental, theoretical or simulations) on nanostructures or nanomaterials that have potential application in the field of optical sensing and sensors.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Synthesis, fabrication, characterization, and simulation of nanomaterials and nanostructures
• Optical systems of utilizing nanomaterials for sensing
• Sensors based on the principles of plasmonics, fluorescence, ring resonator, photonic crystal, nanofiber and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy
• Point-of-care biosensors for diagnosis
• Optofluidic and microfluidic sensing platform
• Sensors based on graphene and carbon nanotube
• Theory and theoretical analysis of nanoscale physics and chemistry for sensing
• Proof-of-concept of sensing applications with nanomaterials
• Translation from laboratory research to commercial products