Volume 5 Number 1 2026
Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy in Biosensing and Cell Imaging: Principles, Hybrid Probe Architectures, and Emerging Bio-Interface Applications
Tina Thai 1*, Annachiara Bazzoni 2
Biosensors and Nanotheranostics 5 (1) 1-8 https://doi.org/10.25163/biosensors.5110987
Submitted: 13 May 2026 Revised: 01 July 2026 Accepted: 09 July 2026 Published: 11 July 2026
Living systems do their chemistry in small places. A neuron releases dopamine from a patch of membrane a few hundred nanometres across, a biofilm acidifies one pocket while its neighbour stays near neutral, and a single phagolysosome may carry a reactive oxygen burst that the next one lacks. Bulk electrochemistry averages all of this away. Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), together with the wider family of scanning electrochemical probe microscopies, was developed to recover that lost spatial information, yet its classical form struggles on soft, uneven biological specimens, where changes in topography and changes in reactivity become hard to separate. This review traces how the field has responded. We first revisit the operating principles of direct-current, alternating-current and intermittent-contact SECM, and examine the micro/nanohybrid probes (coaxial, theta-type and multi-barrel) and multimodal couplings with scanning ion conductance microscopy, atomic force microscopy and scanning electrochemical cell microscopy that now separate topography from faradaic signal. Drawing on a structured narrative synthesis, we compare reported spatial resolutions, collection efficiencies and biological outcomes, from single-organelle reactive species profiling to three-parameter mapping of live oral biofilms. We follow the same interfacial logic outward, into nanostructured point-of-care biosensors, bacterial nanocellulose and hydrogel bio-interfaces, and the antifouling and signal-amplification chemistries that decide whether a sensor survives real biofluids. Across these areas, analytical performance is often impressive, but most platforms remain at technology readiness levels 3–5. We close by discussing fabrication reproducibility, temporal resolution, fouling and validation as the main obstacles still separating demonstrations from routine biological and clinical use.
Keywords: scanning electrochemical microscopy; hybrid nanoprobes; single-cell imaging; biofilm mapping; electrochemical biosensors; bacterial nanocellulose; antifouling interfaces; point-of-care diagnostics
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