Speaker
Description
Field-effect transistors (FETs) can be repurposed from electronic components into bio/chemical sensors by exploiting the sensitivity of conductive nanomaterials to their molecular environment. Graphene is particularly well suited for the fabrication of field-effect biosensors (bioFETs) [1], owing to its chemical stability in aqueous media and its amenability to functionalization with biomolecules. As an atomically thin material, graphene is entirely a surface, making its electrical transport highly sensitive to biochemical processes occurring near its surface. However, achieving selectivity for specific molecular targets requires careful engineering of the graphene with biorecognition elements such as antibodies, aptamers, or enzymes, without significantly degrading the electronic performance of the device.
In this talk, I will present our work investigating the interplay between surface chemistry and electronic transport in graphene FETs. I will review our efforts to control a variety of functionalization strategies, including both covalent and non-covalent approaches, with emphasis on our recent advances in gate-controlled surface chemistry [2]. I will also describe our ongoing development of parallelized instrumentation for the high-throughput fabrication and characterization of on-chip graphene bioFET arrays [2,3]. Finally, I will discuss translational perspectives toward integrating nanocarbon-based bioFETs into lab-on-a-chip platforms for biomedical diagnostic applications.
[1] Béraud et al. Analyst, 146, 403 (2021)
[2] Bazán et al. Nano Letters 22, 2635 (2022)
[3] Bencherif et al. npj 2D Materials and Applications, 8, 53 (2024)