Printable Bioelectronics To Investigate Functional Biological Interfaces

Abstract

Thin-film transistors can be used as high-performance bioelectronic devices to accomplish tasks such as sensing or controlling the release of biological species as well as transducing the electrical activity of cells or even organs, such as the brain. Organic, graphene, or zinc oxide are used as convenient printable semiconducting layers and can lead to high-performance low-cost bioelectronic sensing devices that are potentially very useful for point-of-care applications. Among others, electrolyte-gated transistors are of interest as they can be operated as capacitance-modulated devices, because of the high capacitance of their charge double layers. Specifically, it is the capacitance of the biolayer, being lowest in a series of capacitors, which controls the output current of the device. Such an occurrence allows for extremely high sensitivity towards very weak interactions. All the aspects governing these processes are reviewed here.

Organic bioelectronics probing conformational changes in surface confined proteins

“…neurodegenerative diseases)6; ( ii ) it provides valuable information for the bottom-up design and fabrication of nanoscale devices and sensors for biomedical applications7. In this respect, organic bioelectronics can be a precious tool to achieve a deeper and more complete understanding of the processes involving protein interfaces, since the energetic and electrostatic contributions play the main role in shaping the response of its devices891011.…”

“…Despite the broad range of studies involving biotin complexes, the binding energetics and the dynamics of the process are not fully understood yet10. For instance, changes in the electrostatic and polarization properties of these proteins upon binding are still poorly experimentally investigated.…”

“…Organic thin-film transistors3233 have been proved to be very powerful in studying processes occurring at biological interfaces81034353637. One of the main advantages of this approach is the possibility to address key information by measuring the device multiple figures of merit38.…”

An Organic Transistor-based Electrical Assay for Copper(II) in Water

“…Importantly, the TFT-based sensor constructed with organic materials such as semiconductors, insulators and artificial receptors on a flexible substrate (= a plastic film or a paper) can be accomplished by lowcost solution processes. 37 These preliminary experiments in the electrical assay successfully show a new applicability of organic TFTs, because the organic TFT has a potential ability to build an easy-to-use sensing system for an on-site monitoring of Cu 2+ . Further systems regarding metal ion detections are in progress in our laboratories.…”

Label-Free Detection of Human Glycoprotein (CgA) Using an Extended-Gated Organic Transistor-Based Immunosensor

“…Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) are one of the best candidates for chemical/biosensor devices because of their low-cost processability and mechanical flexibility [16]. The development of OFET-based biosensors has just begun to bloom in recent years.…”