Low-Noise Finite-Bandgap FET Biosensors in the Nonlinear Gouy-Chapman-Stern Region: A Universal Calibration Curve

Abstract

Finite-bandgap charge-based FET biosensors are known to be insensitive to electronic tunneling noise in the semiconductor and interference from weakly-charged proteins in physiological samples. However, their signal is still corrupted by pH fluctuations and condensing counterions in the bulk electrolyte. Here, we demonstrate that electrolyte noise is screened by the Stern layer beyond the linear Debye-Huckel limit, when the interfacial potential drop is larger than the thermal voltage. Using a fully nonlinear Gouy-Chapman-Stern (GCS) theory, a universal calibration curve is derived and shown to collapse the low-noise FET signals for miRNA, extracellular vesicles (EV), and protein, captured either directly or through silica and magnetic nanoparticle charge reporters, over eleven decades of analyte concentration. The theory involves the dissociation constant KD and a gain parameter {chi}, which represents the competing effects of the reporter charge and buffer Debye screening that must be large to produce the low-noise GCS condition. The limit of detection (LOD) is shown to be KD/{chi}, which can be optimized by varying the probe density, charge reporter, and buffer solution. An optimized hybridization buffer then yields {chi} ~ 22 (LOD ~1 pM) for miRNA detection, and multivalent capture reduces KD by four orders of magnitude for EV detection (relative to protein detection) with {chi} ~ 34 (LOD ~10 fM).