Multi-Wire Tri-Gate Silicon Nanowires Reaching Milli-pH Unit Resolution in One Micron Square Footprint

Laboratoire d’Électronique et de Technologie de l’Information (LETI), Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA), 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9, France

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Academic Editors: Mark A. Reed and Mathias Wipf

Biosensors 2016, 6(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/bios6010009

Received: 24 November 2015 / Revised: 26 February 2016 / Accepted: 4 March 2016 / Published: 15 March 2016

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Field-Effect Transistor Biosensors)

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Abstract

The signal-to-noise ratio of planar ISFET pH sensors deteriorates when reducing the area occupied by the device, thus hampering the scalability of on-chip analytical systems which detect the DNA polymerase through pH measurements. Top-down nano-sized tri-gate transistors, such as silicon nanowires, are designed for high performance solid-state circuits thanks to their superior properties of voltage-to-current transduction, which can be advantageously exploited for pH sensing. A systematic study is carried out on rectangular-shaped nanowires developed in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible technology, showing that reducing the width of the devices below a few hundreds of nanometers leads to higher charge sensitivity. Moreover, devices composed of several wires in parallel further increase the exposed surface per unit footprint area, thus maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio. This technology allows a sub milli-pH unit resolution with a sensor footprint of about 1 µm², exceeding the performance of previously reported studies on silicon nanowires by two orders of magnitude. View Full-Text

Keywords: silicon nanowires; tri-gate transistors; ISFET; pH sensors; 1/f noise

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MDPI and ACS Style

Accastelli, E.; Scarbolo, P.; Ernst, T.; Palestri, P.; Selmi, L.; Guiducci, C. Multi-Wire Tri-Gate Silicon Nanowires Reaching Milli-pH Unit Resolution in One Micron Square Footprint. Biosensors 2016, 6, 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/bios6010009

AMA Style

Accastelli E, Scarbolo P, Ernst T, Palestri P, Selmi L, Guiducci C. Multi-Wire Tri-Gate Silicon Nanowires Reaching Milli-pH Unit Resolution in One Micron Square Footprint. Biosensors. 2016; 6(1):9. https://doi.org/10.3390/bios6010009

Chicago/Turabian Style

Accastelli, Enrico, Paolo Scarbolo, Thomas Ernst, Pierpaolo Palestri, Luca Selmi, and Carlotta Guiducci. 2016. "Multi-Wire Tri-Gate Silicon Nanowires Reaching Milli-pH Unit Resolution in One Micron Square Footprint" Biosensors 6, no. 1: 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/bios6010009

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Multi-Wire Tri-Gate Silicon Nanowires Reaching Milli-pH Unit Resolution in One Micron Square Footprint

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