DNA-decorated graphene chemical sensors

Abstract

Graphene is a true two dimensional material with exceptional electronic properties and enormous potential for practical applications. Graphene's promise as a chemical sensor material has been noted but there has been relatively little work on practical chemical sensing using graphene, and in particular how chemical functionalization may be used to sensitize graphene to chemical vapors. Here we show one route towards improving the ability of graphene to work as a chemical sensor by using single stranded DNA as a sensitizing agent. The resulting broad response devices show fast response times, complete and rapid recovery to baseline at room temperature, and discrimination between several similar vapor analytes.Comment: 7 pages, To appear in Applied Physics Letter

Sensing at the Surface of Graphene Field‐Effect Transistors

“…[203] Interestingly, single-stranded DNA can also be used as a sensitizing agent to selectively probe various gases. [29] Contrarily to the inert sensing behavior of clean GFETs to various gas vapor such as dimethylmethylphosphonate (DMMP, black line, Fig. 5d), ssDNA decorated GFET showed selective sensing responses to vapor of DMMP (blue and red lines indicate different sensing responses when the GFETs were functionalized with two DNA sequences).…”

“…5d), ssDNA decorated GFET showed selective sensing responses to vapor of DMMP (blue and red lines indicate different sensing responses when the GFETs were functionalized with two DNA sequences). [29] We note here that, as a functional DNA or RNA molecule selected in vitro to bind pre-selected analytes (organic and inorganic molecules and proteins) with high affinity and specificity, aptamers also represent a versatile toolbox for producing novel graphene sensors. [171,204,205] Reprinted with permission.…”

“…The introduction of such chemical moieties on the graphene surface or edge is often referred to as graphene functionalization. [109,110] Chemical functionalization of graphene is commonly achieved using either covalent [23][24][25][26][27]28] or non-covalent [29][30][31][32] strategies. The resulted graphene materials contain specific recognition moieties for biochemical sensing, but still share, to a large extent, the same carbon honeycomb backbone and the electrical properties, especially the field effect, of graphene.…”

“…5d). [29] It is now widely accepted that clean graphene should be inert to the presence of most of the gas molecules, although it is possible to amplify the more subtle dipole moment of a charge neutral gas molecule by switching it and mixing the modulated dipole signal in a high frequency setup for detection. [179] The previous observed sensitive responses of pristine graphene to gas molecules could be, therefore, ascribed to defective sensitivities, due to possible defects or polymer contaminations introduced during device fabrication.…”

“…[22] Additionally, graphene (at least ideal graphene) has a crystal lattice free of dangling bonds and is therefore intrinsically chemically inert. This inertness has been a driving force for the first attempts aiming at biointerfacing graphene with specific recognition moieties, via both covalent [23][24][25][26][27]28] and non-covalent [29][30][31][32] approaches, using different biochemical molecules and chemical treatments.…”