ISFET immunosensor improvement using amine-modified polystyrene nanobeads

Antigen-based sensing is recognized as a rapid and sensitive analysis among bioresearch groups. The potential of “on-site” analysis in such devices has been accompanied by some problems. Fabrication of silicon compatible and highly sensitive biosensors has been the center of excessive research within the past few years. In this paper, we report fabrication of two types of sensitive liquid oxide semiconductor (LOS) biosensors using nanostructures. These devices have been manufactured and characterized as immunosensors. These two types of sensors have been produced using different platforms for immobilization of proteins; one based on a functionalized silicon dioxide surface by 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) and another on the basis of using 50-nm amine-modified polystyrene nanobeads. The polystyrene platform not only benefits from its nanosize and high surface to volume ratio but also does not need any new protocol than what is already used for traditional immunosensing system. These sensors measure the change of threshold voltage of the semiconductor inversion inside the capacitor due to the bonding of antibodies to the linked peptides on the surface. Measurements showed that the sensitivity of 50-nm polystyrene-based sensor is much more than the oxide-based one. The nanobeads were then chosen to cover the gate of the ISFET for the amplified sensing. The ISFET devices were biased in a subthreshold region to demonstrate the maximum sensitivity to the accumulated charge on the gate. Repeatable results after different stress tests were obtained, which proves the suitability and reliability of the polystyrene nanobead platform for this application. Finally, a calibration curve has been derived that can be used for real sample measurements. The detection limit of 1.0152 μg/ml was calculated for the fabricated sensor. Graphical abstract