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  • Publication
    Electrical label-free sensing of cardiac troponin biomarker: FET-based integration with substrate-gate coupling
    Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a leading cause of death worldwide despite the existence of therapy’s advances. Therefore, an early diagnosis method by using cardiac biomarkers is essential to enable correct countermeasures. Cardiac Troponin I (cTnI) is one of the cardiac biomarkers for early diagnosis of AMI and considered as ‘gold standard’ for cardiac muscle injury determination. The detection of cTnI through an electrical-based biosensor allows label-free detection by converting biomolecular binding event into a significant electrical signal via a semiconductor transducer. It utilizes conductivity to specify the existence of biomolecules. One of the electrical-based biosensors known as field-effect transistor (FET)-based biosensor has drawn much attention for owning the concept of charge transduction; thus, allows early, high sensitivity, high selectivity, and rapid diagnosis of the specific cardiac biomarker at low concentrations. In this work, the zinc oxide (ZnO)-FET biosensor coupled with substrategate has been designed and fabricated for the detection of cTnI biomarker. ZnO thin film, as n-type biocompatible semiconductor material, and also as transducer was deposited via sol-gel and spin coating techniques between p-type source and drain terminal on SOI substrate, forming a p-n-p junction, a device capable of bio-sensing application. The surface morphology of the thin film was characterized by using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The thin film, which demonstrated hexagonal wurtzite phase as shown by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis appropriate for biomolecules interaction. The surface of the ZnO thin film was immobilized with cTnI monoclonal antibody (MAb-cTnI) as biological receptor via covalent binding technique for capturing cTnI biomarker. The process was validated by Fourier transform-infrared (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The device structure was simulated in Silvaco Atlas 2D-simulator, to elucidate its electrical characteristic, by means of hole and electron concentration in the channel and buried oxide/substrate interface, respectively. The device demonstrated a new strategy via electrical characterization with the introduction of substrate-gate coupling that enhanced the formation of hole conduction layer at the channel between drain and source region. Finally, the biosensor shown significant increment in relative changes of drain current level in a linear range of 6.2 to 16.5 % with the increase of positively charge cTnI biomarker concentrations from 1 ng/ml to 10 μg/ml. The device sensitivity of the detection is at 2.51 %·(g/ml)-1 with limit of detection (LOD) down to 3.24 pg/ml.