Recent Advances and Progress in Development of the Field Effect Transistor Biosensor: A Review

The vital utilization of biosensors in different domains has led to the design of much more precise and powerful biosensors, since they have the potential to attain information in a fast and simple manner compared to conventional assays. The present review describes the basic concepts, operation, and construction of biosensors and presented an ideology that choice of categorization, selection of immobilization method and advantages are crucial factors for an efficient and commercial biosensor. Amongst various biosensors, the field effect transistor (FET)-based biosensors have shown much more potential and immense advantages such as high detection ability and sensitivity for both neutral and charged biomolecules and, hence, have been explored comprehensively in the present review. This paper discusses the current challenges in device design by mainly focusing on the quantitative and qualitative performance parameters such as sensing surface properties, signal-to-noise ratio and various other factors, since consideration of these factors will eventually address the crucial concerns related to device design and practical limitations. The critical measures to translate the commercialization of biosensors in the market at a high pace have also been discussed. Hence, the discussion on device challenges illustrates that there is a scope of improvement in the areas such as short-channel effects, specificity and nanocavity filling factor for revolutionary advances in FET-based biosensors. Optimal selection of design rules and biosensing material has the potential to feature the next generation of biosensors. The present paper reports that following integrated multidisciplinary approaches and switching to nanotechnology in designing of FET-based biosensors can offer a lot of improvements in the practical key factors (such as low cost and reliability) and opportunities for the biosensors in the marketplace.