Quantitative relationship between analyte concentration and amplified signal intensity of a molecular wire sensor

The molecular wire approach has recently been proposed as a method to enhance the sensitivity of traditional chemosensors. In this paper, we present the exact quantitative relationship between analyte concentration and the signal for the ideal molecular wire sensor (MWS). The signal profile of a MWS differs from that of traditional chemosensors in that its Stern-Volmer curve has a positive curvature that increases with the number kappa of receptor units in each molecular wire composing the MWS. We find that the sensitivity of the MWS to the change of analyte concentration increases with kappa if kappa is less than a critical value kappa*; otherwise, it becomes a decreasing function of kappa. We also briefly comment on aspects of nonideal sensors.