Proposal for tunnel-field-effect-transistor as ultra-sensitive and label-free biosensors

Tunnel field-effect-transistor (TFET) based biosensor is proposed, and it is shown that they can surpass by several orders, the performance of those based on conventional FET (CFET) and hence, can potentially revolutionize the biosensing applications. Analytical formula is derived for the sensitivity and response time to provide physical insights in terms of material bandgap and operation regime of the TFET biosensor for achieving optimal results. At the same time, rigorous numerical simulations have been performed in order to obtain accurate values of sensitivity for both biomolecule and pH sensing operations. The time dependent response of the biosensors has also been discussed through analytical and numerical solutions. It is shown that while the CFET biosensors suffer from fundamental limitations on the maximum sensitivity and minimum detection time achievable, TFET biosensors, with their fundamentally different current injection mechanism in the form of band-to-band tunneling, can overcome such limitations and lead to over four orders of magnitude higher sensitivity and over an order of magnitude lower response time. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3698093]