Organic electrochemical transistors as an emerging platform for bio-sensing applications: A review

Abstract

Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have been recognized as a major emerging technology in the area of flexible electronics in the last decade. Although they have yet to be incorporated in common electronic fabrication technologies, they have considerably advanced as an emerging platform for biosensing applications. The paper provides a comprehensive and critical review of the most important advances in the field of OECT-based biosensors. A brief description of the device physics is given with the most important equations and a comparison has been made with the conventional MOSFET devices and characteristic equations. The use of OECTs as an emerging biosensing platform has been explored and their application as biomolecule, enzyme, bacteria, viruses, cells, nucleotide detectors as well as electrophysiological and wearable sensors has been reported. Furthermore, trends have been extracted and described in the paper in terms of fabrication technologies, electrode materials and most importantly, the semiconducting polymer. Additionally, future perspectives on the development and fabrication technologies of these devices have been further explored.