Overcoming Debye length limitations: Three-dimensional wrinkled graphene field-effect transistor for ultra-sensitive adenosine triphosphate detection

Abstract

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is closely related to the pathogenesis of certain diseases, so the detection of trace ATP is of great significance to disease diagnosis and drug development. Graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs) have been proven to be a promising platform for the rapid and accurate detection of small molecules, while the Debye shielding limits the sensitive detection in real samples. Here, a three-dimensional wrinkled graphene field-effect transistor (3D WG-FET) biosensor for ultra-sensitive detection of ATP is demonstrated. The lowest detection limit of 3D WG-FET for analyzing ATP is down to 3.01 aM, which is much lower than the reported results. In addition, the 3D WG-FET biosensor shows a good linear electrical response to ATP concentrations in a broad range of detection from 10 aM to 10 pM. Meanwhile, we achieved ultra-sensitive (LOD: 10 aM) and quantitative (range from 10 aM to 100 fM) measurements of ATP in human serum. The 3D WG-FET also exhibits high specificity. This work may provide a novel approach to improve the sensitivity for the detection of ATP in complex biological matrix, showing a broad application value for early clinical diagnosis and food health monitoring.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

ATP in complex human serum / three-dimensional wrinkled graphene / field effect transistor / Debye shielding / ultra-sensitive

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Electronic supplementary materials

The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-023-1281-7 and https://journal.hep.com.cn/fop/EN/10.1007/s11467-023-1281-7.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 12274058 and 12104085), Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province (No. tsqn201812104), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2021QA008), the Qingchuang Science and Technology Plan of Shandong Province (No. 2019KJJ017), and the project of the Talent Introduction of Dezhou University (No. 2021xjrc101).

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