Surfactant
assemblies have drawn great attention in fabricating
fluorescent sensors as they can provide advantages such as easy preparation,
low cost, aqueous detection, high fluorescence stability, high sensitivity
to external stimuli, etc. We have devoted the past few years to fluorescent
cross-reactive sensors and arrays that are advantageous in differentiating
similar analytes and analyzing mixed samples. In this Spotlight on
Applications, we introduce our recent advances in developing surfactant
assembly-based fluorescent sensors and arrays for discrimination applications.
Besides using surfactant assemblies encapsulating fluorophores to
fabricate multiple-element-based sensor arrays, we particularly proposed
to take advantage of modulation effect of dynamic surfactant assemblies
on the photophysical properties of encapsulated fluorophores to construct
single-system-based discriminative sensors, which have been successfully
applied in differentiation of multiple metal ions and various proteins.
The applications of surfactant assembly-based sensors for the detection
and discrimination of thiols, amino acids, and explosives are also
introduced. Finally, the prospects of further efforts for improving
surfactant ensemble sensors and their challenges are discussed.