Bio-organic-semiconductor-field-effect-transistor based on deoxyribonucleic acid gate dielectric

Organic-based field-effect transistors (OFETs) utilize organic semiconductor materials with low electron mobilities and organic gate oxide materials with low dielectric constants. These have rendered devices with slow operating speeds and high operating voltages, compared with their inorganic silicon-based counter parts. Using a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)-based biopolymer, derived from salmon milt and roe sac waste by-products, for the gate dielectric region, we have fabricated an OFET device that exhibits very promising current-voltage characteristics compared with using other organic-based dielectrics. With minimal optimization, using a thin film of DNA-based biopolymer as the gate insulator and pentacene as the semiconductor, we have demonstrated a bio-organic-FET, or BiOFET, in which the current was modulated over three orders of magnitude using gate voltages less than 10 V. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.