The Integration of Field Effect Transistors to Microfluidic Devices

Abstract

Devices that integrate field effect transistors into microfluidic channels are becoming increasingly promising in the medical, environmental, and food realms, among other applications. The uniqueness of this type of sensor lies in its ability to reduce the background signals existing in the measurements, which interfere in obtaining good limits of detection for the target analyte. This and other advantages intensify the development of selective new sensors and biosensors with coupling configuration. This review work focused on the main advances in the fabrication and application of field effect transistors integrated into microfluidic devices as a way of identifying the potentialities that exist in these systems when used in chemical and biochemical analyses. The emergence of research on integrated sensors is not a recent study, although more recently the progress of these devices is more accentuated. Among the studies that used integrated sensors with electrical and microfluidic parts, those that investigated protein binding interactions seem to be the ones that expanded the most due, among other things, to the possibility of obtaining several physicochemical parameters involved in protein–protein interactions. Studies in this area have a great possibility of advancing innovations in sensors with electrical and microfluidic interfaces in new designs and applications.

Novel SOI-Biosensor Topology for the Detection of an Acute Myocardial Infarction Marker — Troponin I

“…SOI-biosensor is a high-potential analytical device for label-free detectionof the target molecules. It has high sensitivity and can record a signal in real time [11]. However, there are specific factors that complicate the SOI-biosensor application -for instance, the topology and design of the biosensor.…”

“…A modern high-potential diagnostic technique of troponin I detection is the use of a biosensor based on field-effect transistors on silicon-on-insulator structures (SOI-biosensor) [11][12][13][14], which allows conducting label-free real-time analysis. Moreover, it can serve as a basis for a portable tool for multicomplex analysis of various biological particles (proteins, viral particles, nucleic acids, etc.)…”

“…Moreover, it can serve as a basis for a portable tool for multicomplex analysis of various biological particles (proteins, viral particles, nucleic acids, etc.) [8,11,12,15,16].…”

“…The receptor layer ensures biospecific recognition of the target molecule as the interaction of the receptor and the target molecule generates a chemical or physical signal. This signal is further converted into an electrical output signal by a transducer [8,11,15,[17][18][19]. The following SOI-biosensors are widely used: devices with a ground electrode that is introduced directly "ontop" the analyzed liquid sample to eliminate random electrical potential caused by ions and charged molecules [15,17,18,[20][21][22].…”

“…Figure 1 shows a design and an electrical circuit diagram of SOI-biosensor connection [11,13,15,18,20,23,24].…”