Nanowire-Based Nanoelectronic Devices in the Life Sciences
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Nanowire Field-Effect Sensors
Nanoelectronic Devices in the Life Sciences
Fernando Patolsky, Brian P. Timko, Gengfeng Zheng, and Charles M. Lieber Abstract The interface between nanosystems and biosystems is emerging as one of the broadest and most dynamic areas of science and technology, bringing together biology, chemistry, physics, biotechnology, medicine, and many areas of engineering. The combination of these diverse areas of research promises to yield revolutionary advances in healthcare, medicine, and the life sciences through the creation of new and powerful tools that enable direct, sensitive, and rapid analysis of biological and chemical species. Devices based on nanowires have emerged as one of the most powerful and general platforms for ultrasensitive, direct electrical detection of biological and chemical species and for building functional interfaces to biological systems, including neurons. Here, we discuss representative examples of nanowire nanosensors for ultrasensitive detection of proteins and individual virus particles as well as recording, stimulation, and inhibition of neuronal signals in nanowire–neuron hybrid structures.
Introduction Semiconductor nanowires are emerging as remarkably powerful building blocks in nanoscience, with the potential to have a significant impact on numerous areas of science and technology ranging from electronics and photonics to the life sciences and healthcare.1–9 Critical to the advances now being made worldwide with nanowires has been the welldeveloped understanding of the growth mechanism,1–6,10 which has enabled the reproducible synthesis of nanowires of homogeneous composition and diameter with controllable electronic and optical properties. Moreover, predictable elaboration of the basic nanowire structural motif has been utilized to produce axial heterostructures and superlattices, radial core–shell and core–multishell heterostructures, and branched nanowire structures with unique functions built in at the stage of synthesis.2–6 Significantly, these characteristics make semiconductor nanowires one of the best defined and most versatile
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nanomaterial systems available today, thus enabling scientists to move beyond, for example, single-device proof-of-concepts studies to the exploration of new areas of science and technology. One particularly rich area centers on the interface between nanowires and the life sciences. In general, the similarity in size of nanowires and natural nanostructures in biological systems makes nanowires an obvious choice for creating highly sensitive tools that can probe biological systems. Nanowire electronic devices, moreover, enable a detection and sensing modality—direct and label-free electrical readout (i.e., without the use of bound dyes or fluorescent probes)—that is exceptionally attractive for many applications in medicine and the life sciences.7–9,11–15 Here, we provide an introduction to the underlying nanowire nanotechnology and then illustrate the diverse applications of this technology at the interface with the
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