Single‐atom metal‐nitrogen‐carbon catalysts energize single molecule detection for biosensing

Biosensors featuring single molecule detection present huge opportunities as well challenges in food safety inspection, disease diagnosis, and environmental monitoring. Single-molecule is largely lacking of high enough activity, precision selectivity, understanding the exact operating mechanism. Single-atom catalysts (SACs), especially those metals-nitrogen-carbon that mimic natural metalloenzyme structure, with well-defined metal atom bond configurations, level molecular easy fabrication, endow detections practical-use feasibilities. The recent advances single-atom also new pathways key mechanism understandings. In this short review, we will first visit brief history advantages SACs have been explored only recently for molecule-scale biosensors, where they are analogous differentiated from nanozymes metalloenzymes. Their applications electrochemical, photochemical, photoelectrochemical sensors then discussed comprehensively by focusing on different sensing modes achieving local coordination-modulated signal amplifications. Finally, identify faced these SACs-based further development biosensors.