EGOFET

Development of (Poly)electrolyte gated organic field effect transistor for highly sensitive sensing applications

Massive demands in detection of harmful pollutants, waste from pharmaceutical industry as well as others noxious compounds at high sensitivity’s level have pushed scientific community towards development of sensitive, compact, practical and low-cost disposable sensors. Within this context, the present project addresses to elaboration of portable sensors based on the concept of (poly)electrolyte gate organic field effect transistor, abbreviated as (P)EGOFET. As part of SENERGiLab – IAL foundation, this project is presented to establish a novel research direction by combining different expertise from both teams, ranging from material synthesis, sensing of targeted molecules to elaboration of devices. In the current stage, controlling the interface between the electrolyte layer and the organic semiconductor (OSC)/ electrochemical conducting polymer (ECP) is remained as a grand challenge for further commercialization of this technology. Indeed, conventional electrolytes have a major drawback issuing from the operational instability of OSC at aqueous interface and/or the trapped ions within the conducting channel, resulting to a shift of threshold voltage[1]. Thus, the use of polyelectrolyte could minimize these effects, leading to more performant devices.  Furthermore, the use of polyelectrolyte could enhance the switching time (on/off) compared to conventional electrolyte, resulting from high ion polarization within the polyelectrolyte. By mastering the elaboration of poly(ionic liquid) (PILs), we hypothesize that a well-controlled interface OSC/ ECP // (poly)electrolyte layer could be prepared by means of molecular engineering of PILs. Also, in order to increase the sensitivity, surface modification (conducting channel and gate’s surface) with specific receptors could be also considered. As outcome of this project, we expect a strong knowledge on elaboration of PILs with on-demand characteristics alongside with a great understanding of charge transport at the interface of gate/polyelectrolyte and of OSC or ECP/polyelectrolyte. Accordingly, this work is expected to end-up with operational devices owning unprecedented stability, selectivity and sensibility.
 

• WP1. Elaboration of materials.
• WP2. Surface functionalization
• WP3. Fabrication of PEGOFET
• WP4. Participation to scientific communication and education

The following staff members will be implicated in the project:
(FR team) Dr. Thuan Pham, Dr. Thuan-Nguyen Pham – Truong, Dr. Phillipe Banet, Cedric Plesse, Giao Nguyen
(UWC team) Dr Francis Muya, Dr Keagan Pokpas and Prof. Christopher Ardense and Dr. Sylvain Halindintwali.
beside, it is envisagedto recruit 2 Master students and 1 Postdoc