Design and development of multiscale organic/inorganic interfaces for biosensing applications

Abstract

Electrochemical biosensors have broad applications including clinical diagnostics, industrial process monitoring, environmental monitoring, and agricultural analysis. Electrochemical biosensors integrate a miniaturized biorecognition element with an electrochemical transducer, such as an electrode or a field-effect transistor. This design facilitates device integration, enabling easy miniaturization, batch manufacturing, and incorporation with electronic acquisition modules on a single chip. Nonetheless, several limitations of electrochemical biosensors hinder their broader application in biomedical sensing. Nanomaterials are critical elements of electrochemical biosensor design due to their unique physical, chemical, and electrical properties that significantly enhance sensor performance. The biofunctionalization process is another important step in determining the overall performance of a biosensor. While manufacturing techniques and substrate prototyping for biosensors have reached a mature stage, scalable, fast, and cost-effective methods for interface engineering are missing. The techniques used for modifying electrode surfaces with nanomaterials and bio-recognition elements come with many challenges and drawbacks, which hinder the large-scale, cost-effective production of biosensors and ultimately limit their practical application in real-world settings. In this thesis, we developed novel methods and strategies to overcome these limitations without compromising key performance metrics