A sensitivity-enhanced field-effect chiral sensor.
Organic thin-film transistor sensors have been recently attracting the attention of the plastic electronics community for their potential exploitation in novel sensing platforms. Specificity and sensitivity are however still open issues: in this respect chiral discrimination-being a scientific and technological achievement in itself--is indeed one of the most challenging sensor bench-tests. So far, conducting-polymer solid-state chiral detection has been carried out at part-per-thousand concentration levels. Here, a novel chiral bilayer organic thin-film transistor gas sensor--comprising an outermost layer with built-in enantioselective properties-is demonstrated to show field-effect amplified sensitivity that enables differential detection of optical isomers in the tens-of-parts-per-million concentration range. The ad-hoc-designed organic semiconductor endowed with chiral side groups, the bilayer structure and the thin-film transistor transducer provide a significant step forward in the development of a high-performance and versatile sensing platform compatible with flexible organic electronic technologies.
Torsi
Luisa
L
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari, 70126, Bari, Italy. torsi@chimica.uniba.it
Farinola
Gianluca M
GM
Marinelli
Francesco
F
Tanese
M Cristina
MC
Omar
Omar Hassan
OH
Valli
Ludovico
L
Babudri
Francesco
F
Palmisano
Francesco
F
Zambonin
P Giorgio
PG
Naso
Francesco
F