Graphene and carbon nanotube based biosensors: an alternative to fluorescence detection

Fluorescent labels have become a ubiquitous tool for molecular sensing and have led to important breakthroughs ranging from medical assays to single-molecule experiments. Electrical detection by nanoscale field-effect transistors is now approaching the performance level of fluorescence-based approaches. Electrical detection offers significant advantages in terms of detection bandwidth and low-cost measurement hardware. I will discuss the field-effect transduction mechanism, sources of background noise, and several applications that are being pursued. I will focus on graphene and carbon nanotube based sensors that the OSU nanoelectronics group is using for medical assays and single-molecule assays.