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In situ fabrication of organic electrochemical transistors on a microfluidic chip

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Abstract

Microfluid chips integrating with organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are useful for manufacturing biosensors with high throughput and large-scale analyses. We report here the utilization of alternating current (AC) electrodeposition to fabricate OECTs in situ on a microfluid chip. With this method, the organic semiconductor (OS) layer with a channel length of 8 ώm was readily prepared without requiring the post-bonding process in the conventional construction of microfluidic chips. Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate)/graphene quantum dots (PEDOT:PSS/GQDs) composites with different morphologies, such as microfilms, nanodendrites and nanowires were electropolymerized. The mass transfer process of the electropolymerization reaction was evidenced to be diffusion limited. Morphologies, growth directions, and chemical structures of OS layers could be tuned by the amplitude and the frequency of the AC voltage. Transfer and output characteristic curves of OECTs were measured on the microfluidic chip. The maximum transconductance, on/off current ratio and threshold voltage measured in the experiment was 1.58 mS, 246, and 0.120 V, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51705354, 51622507, and 61671271); Scientific and Technologial Innovation Programs of Higher Education Institutions in Shanxi (Nos. 183290224-S and 201802029).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Information and Computer, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Jianlong Ji, Mangmang Li, Hongwang Wang, Kai Zhuo, Ying Liu & Shengbo Sang

  2. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, 27695, USA

    Jianlong Ji & Xiaoning Jiang

  3. Department of Bioengineering, California Nanosystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, 90095, USA

    Zhaowei Chen & Zhen Gu

  4. The State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Xing Yang

  5. Department of Chemistry, Colleges of Sciences, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, China

    Yang Shu

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  1. Jianlong Ji
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Correspondence to Shengbo Sang or Yang Shu.

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Ji, J., Li, M., Chen, Z. et al. In situ fabrication of organic electrochemical transistors on a microfluidic chip. Nano Res. 12, 1943–1951 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2462-0

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