Chemo-Electrical Signal Transduction by Using Stimuli-Responsive Polymer Gate-Modified Field Effect Transistor

A glucose-responsive polymer brush was designed on a gold electrode and exploited as an extended gate for a field effect transistor (FET) based biosensor. A permittivity change at the gate interface due to the change in hydration upon specific binding with glucose was detectable. The rate of response was markedly enhanced compared to the previously studied cross-linked or gel-coupled electrode, owing to its kinetics involving no process of the polymer network diffusion. This finding may offer a new strategy of the FET-based biosensors effective not only for large molecules but also for electrically neutral molecules such as glucose with improved kinetics