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Fabrication of integrated all-solid titanium dioxide and silver/silver chloride electrodes for facile pH electrochemical detection via extended-gate field effect transistor transducing method

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Abstract

An integrated all-solid electrode (IASE) consisting of a solid-state silver/silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) reference electrode (RE) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) sensing electrode (SE) on a single indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate was successfully fabricated for an extended-gate field effect transistor (EGFET) pH sensor. Two different sizes of ITO substrate (2 cm × 2 cm and 1 cm × 2 cm) were used to fabricate the TiO2 SE using the sol–gel spin-coating method with an area of 0.75 and 0.35 cm2, respectively. In contrast, the RE part was fabricated using thermal evaporation. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were used to investigate the composition of TiO2 and Ag/AgCl thin film. The IASE performance was then evaluated in terms of sensor sensitivity and linearity by applying it to an EGFET pH sensor setup and compared with commercialized Ag/AgCl RE. It was found that the sensor sensitivity and linearity for IASE are comparable, if not better than the EGFET setup using the commercialized RE. The sensitivity for IASE-EGFET was 67.8 mV/pH for the size of 2 cm × 2 cm ITO substrate, and that of 1 cm × 2 cm was 52.8 mV/pH, while the sensitivity setup with commercialized RE was 54.3 mV/pH.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was partially supported by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia under Fundamental Research Grant Scheme under the (Project Code: FRGS/1/2021/TK0/UITM/02/50).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nano-Electronic Center (NET), School of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

    Shaiful Bakhtiar Hashim, Nur Syahirah Kamarozaman, Norhidayatul Hikmee Mahzan & Zurita Zulkifli

  2. Integrated Sensors Research Group, School of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

    Shaiful Bakhtiar Hashim, Nur Syahirah Kamarozaman, Norhidayatul Hikmee Mahzan, Nurbaya Zainal, Aimi Bazilah Rosli & Sukreen Hana Herman

  3. Microwave Research Institute, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

    Sukreen Hana Herman

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  1. Shaiful Bakhtiar Hashim
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Contributions

SB wrote and revised the article. SB and AB performed material and sample preparation. NS, NH and N carried out the data characterization. SH and Z conceptualized the central research idea, provided the theoretical framework, and supervised the research progress. SH and Z anchored the review and revisions. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sukreen Hana Herman.

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Hashim, S.B., Kamarozaman, N.S., Mahzan, N.H. et al. Fabrication of integrated all-solid titanium dioxide and silver/silver chloride electrodes for facile pH electrochemical detection via extended-gate field effect transistor transducing method. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1434 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10852-6

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