Graphene and Nanowire Transistors for Cellular Interfaces and Electrical Recording

Abstract

Nanowire field-effect transistors (NW-FETs) have been shown to be powerful building blocks for nanoscale bioelectronic interfaces with cells and tissue due to their excellent sensitivity and their capability to form strongly coupled interfaces with cell membranes. Graphene has also been shown to be an attractive building block for nanoscale electronic devices, although little is known about its interfaces with cells and tissue. Here we report the first studies of graphene field effect transistors (Gra-FETs) as well as combined Gra-and NW-FETs interfaced to electrogenic cells. Gra-FET conductance signals recorded from spontaneously beating embryonic chicken cardiomyocytes yield well-defined extracellular signals with signal-to-noise ratio routinely >4. The conductance signal amplitude was tuned by varying the Gra-FET working region through changes in water gate potential, V wg . Signals recorded from cardiomyocytes for different V wg result in constant calibrated extracellular voltage, indicating a robust graphene/cell interface. Significantly, variations in V wg across the Dirac point demonstrate the expected signal polarity flip, thus allowing, for the first time, both n-and p-type recording to be achieved from the same Gra-FET simply by offsetting V wg . In addition, comparisons of peak-to-peak recorded signal widths made as a function of Gra-FET device sizes and versus NW-FETs allowed an assessment of relative resolution in extracellular recording. Specifically, peak-to-peak widths increased with the area of Gra-FET devices, indicating an averaged signal from different points across the outer membrane of the beating cells. One-dimensional silicon NW-FETs incorporated side by side with the two-dimensional Gra-FET devices further highlighted limits in both temporal resolution and multiplexed measurements from the same cell for the different types of devices. The distinct and complementary capabilities of Gra-and NW-FETs could open up unique opportunities in the field of bioelectronics in the future.Bioelectronic interfaces created with nanomaterials represents an exciting and growing field of research that exploits key nanomaterial properties to go well beyond the capabilities of conventional microfabricated electronics. 1-8 For example, several groups have recently reported electrical measurements from cells and tissue interfaced to NW-FETs, with results demonstrating high signal-to-noise recording from cultured neurons, muscle cells, embryonic chicken hearts and acute brain slices. [4][5][6][7][8] Unique features of these studies compared to conventional planar devices measurements, include (i) the exceptional small active area of the NW-FET devices and (ii) the fact that nanodevices protrude from the plane of the substrate. The former feature enables high spatial resolution, while the latter can increase device/cell interfacial coupling. Indeed, studies have shown that nanostructured interfaces can enhance cellular adhesion and activity, 9-14 and thus it is likely that NWs and other nanomaterials may...

Sensing at the Surface of Graphene Field‐Effect Transistors

“…7c). [176] Narrow GFETs (~2 um×3 um) exhibit similar peak-to-peak widths as the nanowireFET (~100 times smaller per area). But GFET devices with large size (~20 um×10 um) detect an average of the extracellular potential from beating cells and yield a broadened peak-to-peak signal width.…”

“…Even at its early stage of development, such SNR performance equals (or even surpasses) that of well-established techniques like the microelectrode arrays (MEAs) and the planarFET [211] and nanowireFET [176] .…”

Recent advances in large-scale assembly of semiconducting inorganic nanowires and nanofibers for electronics, sensors and photovoltaics

“…[181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191][192][193][194][195][196][197] The principle of biological detection based on nanowire FETs is very simple. For example, when a single virus particle binds to an antibody receptor linked to the surface of a nanowire FET detector, it yields a conductance change due to the change in nanowire surface charge; when the virus particle subsequently unbinds, the conductance returns to the baseline.…”

Carbon nanomaterials field-effect-transistor-based biosensors

“…Only very recently has the operation of graphene in aqueous electrolytes (Figure 6b) for use in biosensors and bioelectronics been reported by several groups. [77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] For example, Ang et al 77 first demonstrated the use of solution-gated epitaxial graphene as a pH sensor. Ohno et al 78 reported on electrolyte-gated graphene field-effect transistors for detecting pH and protein adsorption.…”

“…To further investigate the biocompatibility of graphene with live cells or tissue, Cohen-Karni et al 83 demonstrated for the first time recording from eletrogenic cells using single-layer graphene formed by mechanical exfoliation from graphite and carried out simultaneous recording using graphene and silicon nanowire FETs (Figure 7a …”