Highly Sensitive Transistor Sensor for Biochemical Sensing and Health Monitoring Applications: A Review

Transistors have gained tremendous attraction in biochemical sensing due to their outstanding performance with high sensitivity, flexibility, selectivity, real-time monitoring, ease of fabrication, and biocompatibility for various point-of-care (POC) biomedical and healthcare applications. Here, critical sensing capability by different transistor classes of: 1) organic field-effect transistor (OFET); 2) organic electrochemical transistor (OECT); 3) low-dimensional (LD) semiconductor field-effect transistor (FET); and 4) hybrid transistors are summarized for biochemical (e.g., ions, glucose, antigen/antibody, DNA, bacteria, virus, and cancer biomarkers) detection. Recent advancements in the transistor field for bioanalyte sensing, including a new class of a photoelectrochemical (PEC) transistor, bioreceptor conjugation, strategies to improve sensitivity, and overcoming the limit of detection (LOD), are discussed in a focused manner. Furthermore, organic and inorganic active material-based transistors are compared to find the best fit for specific target biodetection and healthcare applications.