Real-time electrical detection of epidermal skin MoS2 biosensor for point-of-care diagnostics

Various approaches have been proposed for point-of-care diagnostics, and in particular, optical detection is preferred because it is relatively simple and fast. At the same time, field-effect transistor (FET)-based biosensors have attracted great attention because they can provide highly sensitive and label-free detection. In this work, we present highly sensitive, epidermal skin-type point-of-care devices with system-level integration of flexible MoS2 FET biosensors, read-out circuits, and light-emitting diode (LEDs) that enable real-time detection of prostate cancer antigens (PSA). Regardless of the physical forms or mechanical stress conditions, our proposed high-performance MoS2 biosensors can detect a PSA concentration of 1 pg·mL–1 without specific surface treatment for anti-PSA immobilization on the MoS2 surface on which we characterize and confirm physisorption of anti-PSA using Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and tapping-mode atomic force microscopy (tm-AFM). Furthermore, current modulation induced by the binding process was stably maintained for longer than 2–3 min. The results indicate that flexible MoS2-based FET biosensors have great potential for point-of-care diagnostics for prostate cancer as well as other biomarkers.