Cortisol is a hormone released in response to stress and is a major glucocorticoid produced by adrenal glands. Here, we report a wearable sensory electronic chip using label-free detection, based on a platinum/graphene aptamer extended gate field effect transistor (EG-FET) for the recognition of cortisol in biological buffers within the Debye screening length. The device shows promising experimental features for real-time monitoring of the circadian rhythm of cortisol in human sweat. We report a hysteresis-free EG-FET with a voltage sensitivity of the order of 14 mV/decade and current sensitivity up to 80% over the four decades of cortisol concentration. The detection limit is 0.2 nM over a wide range, between 1 nM and 10 µM, of cortisol concentrations in physiological fluid, with negligible drift over time and high selectivity. The dynamic range fully covers those in human sweat. We propose a comprehensive analysis and a unified, predictive analytical mapping of current sensitivity in all regimes of operation.

Two-dimensional/two-dimensional (2D/2D) heterojunctions form one of the most versatile technological solutions for building tunneling field effect transistors because of the sharp and potentially clean interfaces resulting from van der Waals assembly. Several evidences of room temperature band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) have been recently reported, but only few tunneling devices have been proven to break the Boltzmann limit of the minimum subthreshold slope, 60 mV per decade at 300 K. Here, we report the fabrication and characterization of a vertical p-type Tunnel FET (TFET) co-integrated on the same flake with a p-type MOSFET in a WSe₂/SnSe₂ material system platform. Due to the selected beneficial band alignment and to a van der Waals device architecture having an excellent heterostructure 2D–2D interface, the reported tunneling devices have a sub-thermionic point swing, reaching a value of 35 mV per decade, while maintaining excellent ON/OFF current ratio in excess of 10⁵ at V_DS = 500 mV. The TFET characteristics are directly compared with the ones of a WSe₂ MOSFET realized on the very same flake used in the heterojunction. The tunneling device clearly outperforms the 2D MOSFET in the subthreshold region, crossing its characteristic over several orders of magnitude of the output current and providing better digital and analog figures of merit.