A novel, simple and low-temperature ultrasonic spray method was developed to fabricate the multi-walled carbon-nanotubes (MWCNTs) based extended-gate field-effect transistors (EGFETs) as the pH sensor. With an acid-treated process, the chemically functionalized two-dimensional MWCNT network could provide plenty of functional groups which exhibit hydrophilic property and serve as hydrogen sensing sites. For the first time, the EGFET using a MWCNT structure could achieve a wide sensing rage from pH = 1 to pH = 13. Furthermore, the pH sensitivity and linearity values of the CNT pH-EGFET devices were enhanced to 51.74 mV/pH and 0.9948 from pH = 1 to pH = 13 while the sprayed deposition reached 50 times. The sensing properties of hydrogen and hydroxyl ions show significantly dependent on the sprayed deposition times, morphologies, crystalline and chemical bonding of acid-treated MWCNT. These results demonstrate that the MWCNT-EGFETs are very promising for the applications in the pH and biomedical sensors.
A high-performance extended-gate field-effect transistor (EGFET) as pH sensor with its microstructured sensing head composed of an oxygen-modified reduced graphene oxide film (RGOF) on a reverse-pyramid (RP) Si structure was developed to achieve a high sensitivity of 57.5 mV/pH with an excellent linearity of 0.9929 in a wide pH sensing range of 1–13. These features were ascribed to the large amount of sensing sites and large sensing area. In contrast, the planar Si substrate with the oxygen-plasma-treated RGOF (OPT-RGOF) at the optimal bias power showed a sensitivity of 52.9 mV/pH compared with 45.0 mV/pH for that without plasma treatment. It reveals that oxygen plasma can produce oxygen-containing groups as sensing sites, enhancing proton sensing characteristics. However, oxygen plasma treatment at high bias powers would cause damage to the RGOFs, resulting in poor conducting and sensing properties. On the other hand, the use of the RP structures could increase the effective sensing area and further promote the sensing performance.
The high-performance pH-sensing membrane of extended-gate field-effect transistors (EGFET) composed of high-conductivity horizontally aligned carbon nanotube thin films (HACNTFs) after oxygen plasma treatment is successfully demonstrated. The 10-µm-wide catalytic metal lines with 60 µm interspace produced CNT vertical plates, and the plates were mechanically pulled down and densified to form HACNTFs. A large amount of oxygen-containing functional groups are decorated on the CNTs after the oxygen plasma treatment. These functional groups act as the sensing sites and respond to the H + or OH % ions in solutions with different pH values. Therefore, these functionalized HACNTFs as pH-EGFET-sensing membranes can achieve a high voltage sensitivity of 40 mV/pH and high current sensitivity of 0.78 µA 1/2 /pH. Moreover, large linearity of 0.998 is measured in a wide sensing range from pH 1 to 13. These results reveal that the oxygen plasma treatment is an effective way to improve the CNTsensing characteristics in pH-EGFET sensors.
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