Paper GR+NS+PS+SS-ThM5
Biosensors Based on Chemically Modified Graphene

Thursday, November 3, 2011, 9:20 am, Room 208

The sensitive and specific detection of biomolecules without using a label is a long-standing goal of the biosensors community. Several promising advances of the past several years formed biological field effect transistors (bioFETs) that have as the gate nanoscale materials such as nanowires and carbon nanotubes. The nanoscale dimensions of these materials allow the small charges associated with biomolecules to significantly change conduction through the gate. These conduction changes can be correlated with solution concentration to give precise readouts. While bioFETs are a promising way forward, there are many processing difficulties associated with these 1-D materials that inhibit large scale, reproducible fabrication of devices. Here, we will discuss our efforts to develop biosensors based on 2-D chemically modified graphene. These devices impart the sensitivity gains seen from other nanoscale materials, but offer a configuration that is amenable to processing techniques that are common in the semiconductor industry. We will focus primarily on chemically modifying graphene for attachment of biomolecular probes. Devices utilizing both graphene and graphene oxide will be covered, and surface spectroscopic studies of the material modification will be discussed. Successful results for the detection of specific DNA hybridization will also be presented, with detection limits that compare favorably with the best results reported from nanowire bioFETs.