On the Physical Informatics Aspects of Chemical Sensing Electronics

The fundamental limits of power dissipation in sensing and related signal and data processing are discussed in the context of the Brillouin principle of physical informatics and its advanced formulations. To illustrate appropriate approaches to this topic, several key reference points are analyzed and compared with practical situations. We conclude that present-day systems dissipate energy at levels several orders of magnitude higher than the fundamental limit, indicating significant opportunities for future improvements. Our analysis presents electronic chemosensors as physical information channels constrained by device technology, thermodynamic principles and information theory. We examine sensors, analog-to-digital converters, processing systems and communication units, highlighting how design choices and noise tolerance influence energy consumption. Fluctuation-enhanced sensing (FES) demonstrates both the challenges and the potential of using intrinsic noise as a source of information. Overall, our study indicates that advances in low-noise design, ADC architectures and embedded systems still offer substantial room for improvement before practical implementations approach theoretical efficiency limits.