Chemical and biological sensors based on organic semiconductors

Abstract

In this thesis I designed, fabricated and characterized two types of sensors: chemical sensors based on organic thin film transistors, and a miniaturized surface plasmon resonance biosensors for biotechnology and medical diagnostics applications. During completion of my research projects I designed and optimized several device architectures using numerical simulations and fundamental physical evaluation of sensing mechanism and performance. Fabricated devices were tested in custom built experimental setups in microfluidic testing chambers using automatic data measurement. Surface functionalization of device surface using self assembled monolayer techniques was employed for experiments that required specificity towards analyzed biological species.