Biocompatibility of silicon nanowires: A step towards IC detectors (original) (raw)
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Silicon nanowires to detect electric signals from living cells
Materials Research Express, 2019
The ability to merge electronic devices with biological systems at the cellular scale is an interesting perspective. Potential applications span from investigating the bio-electric signals in excitable (and non-excitable) cells with an insofar-unreached resolution to plan next-generation therapeutic devices. Semiconductor nanowires (NWs) are well suited for achieving this goal because of their intrinsic size and wide range of possible configurations. However, production of such nanoscale electrodes is pricey, time-consuming and affected by poor compatibility with the Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor integrated circuits (CMOS-IC) process standards. To take a step forward, we introduced a new method to fabricate small, high-density Silicon NWs (SiNWs) with a fast, relatively inexpensive and low-temperature (200 °C) process. Growth of such SiNWs is compatible with CMOS-IC standards, thus theoretically allowing on-site amplification of bioelectric signals from living cells in tight contact. Here, we report our preliminary data showing the biocompatibility of such SiNWs, as a necessary step to produce a compact device providing super-resolved descriptions of bioelectric waveforms captured from the subcellular to the network level.
Silicon Nanowires as Biocompatibile Electronics-Biology Interface
2019 20th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems & Eurosensors XXXIII (TRANSDUCERS & EUROSENSORS XXXIII), 2019
Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) represent new opportunities for developing electrical biosensors due to their inherent properties, including large surface-tovolume ratio, rapid signal response and nanoscale footprint comparable to biomolecular and subcellular structures. Still, fabrication of nanosized electrodes is time-consuming, pricey and might be only scarcely compatible with the Complementary-Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor integrated circuits (CMOS-IC) technology. To take a step forward, we introduced an innovative approach to fabricate small, high-density SiNWs with a low-temperature (200 °C) and CMOScompatible method. In this work, the fabrication process and the preliminary results showing biocompatibility and neutrality of SiNWs used as seeding substrate for cultured cells are presented.
Nano Letters, 2014
Recent advance in free-standing nanowire transistor bioprobes opens up new opportunities of accurately interfacing spatially unobstructed nanoscale sensors with live cells. However, the existing fabrication procedures face efficiency and yield limitations when working with more complex nanoscale building blocks to integrate, for example, multiplexed recordings or additional functionalities. To date, only single-kinked silicon nanowires have been successfully used in such probes. Here we establish a general fabrication strategy to mitigate such limitations with which synthetically designed complex nanoscale building blocks can be readily used without causing significant penalty in yield or fabrication time, and the geometry of the probe can be freely optimized based on the orientation and structure of the building blocks. Using this new fabrication framework, we demonstrate the first multiplexed free-standing bioprobe based on w-shaped silicon kinked nanowires that are synthetically integrated with two nanoscale field-effect transistor devices. Simultaneous recording of intracellular action potentials from both devices have been obtained of a single spontaneously beating cardiomyocyte.
2020
ABSTRACTSilicon nanowire field effect transistors SiNW-FETs provide a local probe for sensing neuronal activity at the subcellular scale, thanks to their nanometer size and ultrahigh sensitivity. The combination with micro-patterning or microfluidic techniques to build model neurons networks above SiNW arrays could allow monitoring spike propagation and tailor specific stimulations, being useful to investigate network communications at multiple scales, such as plasticity or computing processes. This versatile device could be useful in many research areas, including diagnosis, prosthesis, and health security. Using top-down silicon nanowires-based array, we show here the ability to record electrical signals from matured neurons with top-down silicon nanowires, such as local field potential and unitary spike within ex-vivo preparations and hippocampal neurons grown on chip respectively. Furthermore, we demonstrate the ability to guide neurites above the sensors array during 3 weeks of...
Towards the silicon nanowire-based sensor for intracellular biochemical detection
Biosensors & Bioelectronics, 2007
A microneedle sensor platform with integrated silicon nanowire tip was developed for intracellular biochemical detection. Because of the virtue of miniaturized size and high sensitivity, this sensor has a great potential for studying individual cell or localized bioenvironment by revealing the pH level and/or enzyme activities. The fabrication of the microneedle sensor was primarily based on conventional silicon processing, where a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer with 50 nm thick (1 0 0) p-type Si device layer was used as the substrate. The silicon nanowires of 50 nm height and 50-100 nm width were created by electron beam (E-beam) lithography on the tip of microneedle with good electrical connection to the contact pads for convenient electrical measurement. A three layer structure with base, support cantilever, and needle tip was designed to ensure convenient handling of sensors and minimize the invasive penetration into biological cells. In this paper, we demonstrate a preliminary assessment of this novel intracellular sensor with electrical conductance measurement under different pH levels. It is expected that this sensor with proper chemical modification will enable localized biochemical sensing within biological cells, such as neurotransmitter activities during the synaptic communication between neuron cells.
Nature Nanotechnology, 2012
Deciphering the neuronal code-the rules by which neuronal circuits store and process information-is a major scientific challenge 1,2 . Currently, these efforts are impeded by a lack of experimental tools that are sensitive enough to quantify the strength of individual synaptic connections and also scalable enough to simultaneously measure and control a large number of mammalian neurons with single-cell resolution 3,4 . Here, we report a scalable intracellular electrode platform based on vertical nanowires that allows parallel electrical interfacing to multiple mammalian neurons. Specifically, we show that our vertical nanowire electrode arrays can intracellularly record and stimulate neuronal activity in dissociated cultures of rat cortical neurons and can also be used to map multiple individual synaptic connections. The scalability of this platform, combined with its compatibility with silicon nanofabrication techniques, provides a clear path towards simultaneous, highfidelity interfacing with hundreds of individual neurons.
Lab-on-Chip Silicon nanowire biosensors, for biomedical applications
2012
Low-cost point-of-care medical diagnostic devices are of crucial importance for the future health care system. Lab-on-chip (LOC) systems with silicon nanowires (SiNW) in a Field-effect transistor (FET) setup can be used as biosensors. [1] Due to its high sensitivity and compatibility with a number of LOC technologies SiNWs can be used in a variety of setups, making it an excellent candidate for biosensor devices. In biosensing applications, SiNWs can be functionalized, e.g. with specific antibodies, to ensure selective sensitivity towards a certain target. [2] Detecting small amounts of antigens can for example allow for the diagnosis of diseases in their early stages. Single virus detection using SiNWs has been previously demonstrated [1] , opening the possibility of extremely sensitive diagnostic tools. However, in order to develop a reliable and reproducible diagnostic tool, it is of outmost importance to truly understand the effects that lead to the high sensitivity that can be ...
Design Considerations of Silicon Nanowire Biosensors
IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 2007
Biosensors based on silicon nanowires (Si-NWs) promise highly sensitive dynamic label-free electrical detection of biomolecules. Despite the tremendous potential and promising experimental results, the fundamental mechanism of electrical sensing of biomolecules and the design considerations of NW sensors remain poorly understood. In this paper, we discuss the prospects and challenges of biomolecule detection using Si-NW biosensors as a function of device parameters, fluidic environment, charge polarity of biomolecules, etc., and refer to experimental results in literature to support the nonintuitive predictions wherever possible. Our results indicate that the design of Si nanobiosensor is nontrivial and as such, only careful optimization supported by numerical simulation would ensure optimal sensor performance.