Gating of an organic transistor through a bilayer lipid membrane with ion channels

The authors use bilayer lipid membranes (BLMs) as a means to control the gating of organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs). Upon formation of a high quality BLM, the gating of an OECT can be fully suppressed. Gating is restored when gramicidin ion channels are incorporated into the BLM. The valence-dependent permeability of gramicidin enables these devices to discriminate between monovalent and divalent ions. This work shows that ion channels can be effectively employed to control the selectivity of organic transistor-based sensors. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.