New nitride-based devices for electrical detection of DNA hybridization

Abstract

In this thesis we designed and began the fabrication of three new solid state sensors for the detection of DNA hybridization through electrical measurements. The first sensor is a surface acoustic wave device with tapered IDTs capable of giving us a tomographic image of the functionalized sensor surface. We investigated using an array of these type sensors to produce a novel DNA sequencing platform on par with the state-of-the-art sequencing machines of today. The second sensor we designed is a quantum dot-based conduction sensor, where quantum dots in the substrate exponentially increase its conductivity when hybridization events occur. The third sensor is a HEMT AlGaN transistor where the drain access region serves as the functionalized area, so hybridization events increase the parasitic capacitance and change the switching frequency of the device. We have also identified the sensitivity limits and other relevant parameters for each of these devices.