Polytronics for biotronics: unique possibilities of polymers in biosensors and bioMEMS ?

Abstract

In recent years, sensing polymeric materials have gained a wide theoretical interest and practical application in biomedicine both in sensors and in bio-MEMS. They can be used for very different purposes and may offer unique possibilities. The paper give a broad summary of the polymer films used in these type applications. Polymers offer a lot of advantages for medical and biosensor technologies: they are relatively low cost materials, their fabrication techniques are quite simple, they can be deposited on various types of substrates using methods compatible with all microelectronic and micro fabrication technologies, as well as the wide choice of their molecular structure and the possibility to build in side chains, charged or neutral particles or even grains of specific behavior into the bulk material or on its surface region enables producing films with various physical and chemical properties including also sensing behavior.