title: A sensitivity-enhanced field-effect chiral sensor.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari, 70126, Bari, Italy. torsi@chimica.uniba.it
authors.forename: Luisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Torsi
authors.forename: Gianluca M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Farinola
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Marinelli
authors.forename: M Cristina
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Tanese
authors.forename: Omar Hassan
authors.initials: OH
authors.lastname: Omar
authors.forename: Ludovico
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Valli
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Babudri
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Palmisano
authors.forename: P Giorgio
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Zambonin
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Naso