Field-effect transistor (FET)-based biosensors allow label-free detection of biomolecules by measuring their intrinsic charges. The detection limit of these sensors is determined by the Debye screening of the charges from counter ions in solutions. Here, we use FETs with a deformed monolayer graphene channel for the detection of nucleic acids. These devices with even millimeter scale channels show an ultra-high sensitivity detection in buffer and human serum sample down to 600 zM and 20 aM, respectively, which are ∼18 and ∼600 nucleic acid molecules. Computational simulations reveal that the nanoscale deformations can form ‘electrical hot spots’ in the sensing channel which reduce the charge screening at the concave regions. Moreover, the deformed graphene could exhibit a band-gap, allowing an exponential change in the source-drain current from small numbers of charges. Collectively, these phenomena allow for ultrasensitive electronic biomolecular detection in millimeter scale structures.

Tiny silicon microchip–based high-throughput hanging drop arrays allow drug screening and geometric control.

In this paper, we present a set of optimal graphene-based multilayer surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensors for highly sensitive detection of biomolecules. To optimize the biosensor structure, we employed a multi-objective gray wolf optimizer (MOGWO) to maximize the sensitivity and minimize the structure full width at half maximum (FWHM). The main advantages of the optimized structures are high sensitivity, low FWHM, as well as easy implementation. We developed an algorithm that enables us to achieve nine different optimized structures. The best sensitivity, FWHM and FOM are obtained equal to 264.6°/RIU (for the structure #5), 1.905° and 56.6/RIU (for the structure #8), respectively. The results of this paper pave the way for the development of highly-sensitive SPR biosensors.

Rapid, accurate, and label-free detection of biomolecules and chemical substances remains a challenge in healthcare. Optical biosensors have been considered as biomedical diagnostic tools required in numerous areas including the detection of viruses, food monitoring, diagnosing pollutants in the environment, global personalized medicine, and molecular diagnostics. In particular, the broadly emerging and promising technique of surface plasmon resonance has established to provide real-time and label-free detection when used in biosensing applications in a highly sensitive, specific, and cost-effective manner with small footprint platform. In this study we propose a novel plasmonic biosensor based on biaxially crumpled graphene structures, wherein plasmon resonances in graphene are utilized to detect variations in the refractive index of the sample medium. Shifts in the resonance wavelength of the plasmon modes for a given change in the RI of the surrounding analyte are calculated by investigating the optical response of crumpled graphene structures on different substrates using theoretical computations based on the finite element method combined with the semiclassical Drude model. The results reveal a high sensitivity of 4990 nm/RIU, corresponding to a large figure-of-merit of 20 for biaxially crumpled graphene structures on polystyrene substrates. We demonstrate that biaxially crumpled graphene exhibits superior sensing performance compared with a uniaxial structure. According to the results, crumpled graphene structures on a titanium oxide substrate can improve the sensor sensitivity by avoiding the damping effects of polydimethylsiloxane substrates. The enhanced sensitivity and broadband mechanical tunability of the biaxially crumpled graphene render it a promising platform for biosensing applications.

We propose novel nano-plasmonic-based structures for rapid sequencing of DNA molecules. The optical properties of DNA nucleotides have notable differences in the ultraviolet (UV) region of light. Using nanopore, bowtie, and bowtie-nanopore compound structures, probable application of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in DNA sequencing is investigated by employing the discrete dipole approximation method. The effects of different materials like chromium (Cr), aluminum (Al), rhodium (Rh), and graphene (Gr) are studied. We show that for Cr/Al/Gr/Rh, the nucleotide presented shifts the SPR spectra for the nanopore 1/29/5/34 to 14/39/15/67 nm, bowtie 8/2/49/38 to 31/20/79/55 nm, and bowtie-nanopore compound 25/77/5/16 to 80/80/22/39 nm. The Cr-based compound structure shows excellent sensitivity and selectivity which can make it a promising methodology for DNA sequencing.