Ion Sensing with Single Charge Resolution Using Sub-10-nm Electrical Double Layer-gated Silicon Nanowire Transistors

Overview

Journal Sci Adv

Specialties Biology
Science

Date 2021 Dec 3

PMID 34860555

Citations 4

Authors

Qitao Hu

Si Chen

Paul Solomon

Zhen Zhang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Electrical sensors have been widely explored for the analysis of chemical/biological species. Ion detection with single charge resolution is the ultimate sensitivity goal of such sensors, which is yet to be experimentally demonstrated. Here, the events of capturing and emitting a single hydrogen ion (H) at the solid/liquid interface are directly detected using sub–10-nm electrical double layer–gated silicon nanowire field-effect transistors (SiNWFETs). The SiNWFETs are fabricated using a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor compatible process, with a surface reassembling step to minimize the device noise. An individually activated surface Si dangling bond (DB) acts as the single H receptor. Discrete current signals, generated by the single H-DB interactions via local Coulomb scattering, are directly detected by the SiNWFETs. The single H-DB interaction kinetics is systematically investigated. Our SiNWFETs demonstrate unprecedented capability for electrical sensing applications, especially for investigating the physics of solid/liquid interfacial interactions at the single charge level.

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