Biosensing based on field-effect transistors (FET): Recent progress and challenges

Abstract

The use of field-Effect-Transistor (FET) type biosensing arrangements has been highlighted by researchers in the field of early biomarker detection and drug screening. Their non-metalized gate dielectrics that are exposed to an electrolyte solution cover the semiconductor material and actively transduce the biological changes on the surface. The efficiency of these novel devices in detecting different biomolecular analytes in a real-time, highly precise, specific, and label-free manner has been validated by numerous research studies. Considerable progress has been attained in designing FET devices, especially for biomedical diagnosis and cell-based assays in the past few decades. The exceptional electronic properties, compactness, and scalability of these novel tools are very desirable for designing rapid, label-free, and mass detection of biomolecules. With the incorporation of nanotechnology, the performance of biosensors based on FET boosts significantly, particularly, employment of nanomaterials such as graphene, metal nanoparticles, single and multi-walled carbon nanotubes, nanorods, and nanowires. Besides, their commercial availability, and high-quality production on a large-scale, turn them to be one of the most preferred sensing and screening platforms. This review presents the basic structural setup and working principle of different types of FET devices. We also focused on the latest progression regarding the use of FET biosensors for the recognition of viruses such as, recently emerged COVID-19, Influenza, Hepatitis B Virus, protein biomarkers, nucleic acids, bacteria, cells, and various ions. Additionally, an outline of the development of FET sensors for investigations related to drug development and the cellular investigation is also presented. Some technical strategies for enhancing the sensitivity and selectivity of detection in these devices are addressed as well. However, there are still certain challenges which are remained unaddressed concerning the performance and clinical use of transistor-based point-of-care (POC) instruments; accordingly, expectations about their future improvement for biosensing and cellular studies are argued at the end of this review.

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein detection through a plasmonic D-shaped plastic optical fiber aptasensor

“…Alternatively, graphene sheets have been decorated with specific antibody against SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and using a field-effect transistor (FET)-based device a LoD of 1 fg/ml has been achieved [ 14 ]. Despite the impressive LoD reached, FET-based POC are not so diffuse, mainly because important challenges has to performed before approaching the biosensor market [ 15 ].…”

Clinically oriented Alzheimer's biosensors: expanding the horizons towards point-of-care diagnostics and beyond

“…79 FET, integrated with proper biorecognition elements such as aptamer or antibody, is a unique and useful sensing device to detect biomolecular targets [80][81][82] offering many advantages such as real-time, highly sensitive, specic, and label-free transduction of biochemical signals. 83,84 In principle, the sensing mechanism of an FET device involves structural and functional integration of biorecognition element in which the selective interaction of bioreceptors and analyte produces changes in biophysical and biochemical signal. The signal is then transduced and amplied via a eld-effect towards the signal display.…”

Overcome Debye Length Limitations for Biomolecule Sensing Based on Field Effective Transistors†

“…On one hand, FET can be divided into n‐type and p‐type according to the carrier quantity of electrons or holes; on the other hand, FET can be divided into ion‐sensitive FET (ISFET) and metal‐oxide‐semiconductor FET (MOSFET) based on the mode of gate voltage applied to the channel region. [ 33 ]…”