High-performance indium-gallium-zinc-oxide thin-film transistor with Al-induced crystallization for ultra-sensitive detection of gastric cancer exosome microRNA-106a

IF 4.1 3区工程技术 Q2 ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC

Sensors and Actuators A-physical Pub Date : 2025-03-08 DOI:10.1016/j.sna.2025.116441

Tengbo Lv , Jiale Liu , Fei Li , Shenhui Ma , Xianqi Wei , Juan Hu , Xin Li , Chuanyu Han , Shuixiang He , Xiaoli Wang

{"title":"High-performance indium-gallium-zinc-oxide thin-film transistor with Al-induced crystallization for ultra-sensitive detection of gastric cancer exosome microRNA-106a","authors":"Tengbo Lv , Jiale Liu , Fei Li , Shenhui Ma , Xianqi Wei , Juan Hu , Xin Li , Chuanyu Han , Shuixiang He , Xiaoli Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.116441","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Gastric cancer is a prevalent and lethal malignancy, largely due to the absence of specific symptoms in its early stages. The emerging biomarker, exosomal microRNA-106a (miR-106a), is closely associated with the progression of gastric cancer and positively correlates with the cancer cell metastasis. However, current diagnostic methods for microRNA, such as qRT-PCR, are effective but limited by the extremely low abundance, rendering detection without amplification challenging. In this work, we present a label-free detection method for miR-106a using a performance-enhanced IGZO thin-film transistor (TFT) biosensor, specifically an aluminum (Al)-induced crystallization (AIC) IGZO TFT biosensor (Bio-AIC IGZO TFT). The introduction of Al on IGZO film induced crystallization at high temperatures on the top channel, resulting in covalent bonding between the top channel and the Al layer, which significantly enhanced the TFT’s electrical and sensing characteristics. When applied to miR-106a detection, the AlO<sub>x</sub>/Al/AlO<sub>x</sub> layer created a floating gate structure that can effectively transmit the weak electrical signals generated by biochemical reactions at the sensing interface to the channel layer of the device via the tunneling effect. This design prevented performance degradation typically caused by direct contact between the channel layer and liquid in conventional TFT biosensors. The prepared Bio-AIC IGZO TFT demonstrated a wide linear detection range between 1 <em>f</em>M and 1 μM, and exhibited high sensitivity of 4.04 dec<sup>−1</sup> with a detection limit as low as 0.23 <em>f</em>M (1.65 <em>f</em>g/mL) compared to the conventional Bio-IGZO TFT. Furthermore, the optimized biosensor had excellent reproducibility and selectivity for target RNA, demonstrating the potential for trace detection of biomarkers in early gastric cancer. In addition, the biosensor is scalable for detecting a wide range of biomarkers, providing a simple, high-performance strategy for achieving rapid RNA detection.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 116441"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092442472500247X","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Gastric cancer is a prevalent and lethal malignancy, largely due to the absence of specific symptoms in its early stages. The emerging biomarker, exosomal microRNA-106a (miR-106a), is closely associated with the progression of gastric cancer and positively correlates with the cancer cell metastasis. However, current diagnostic methods for microRNA, such as qRT-PCR, are effective but limited by the extremely low abundance, rendering detection without amplification challenging. In this work, we present a label-free detection method for miR-106a using a performance-enhanced IGZO thin-film transistor (TFT) biosensor, specifically an aluminum (Al)-induced crystallization (AIC) IGZO TFT biosensor (Bio-AIC IGZO TFT). The introduction of Al on IGZO film induced crystallization at high temperatures on the top channel, resulting in covalent bonding between the top channel and the Al layer, which significantly enhanced the TFT’s electrical and sensing characteristics. When applied to miR-106a detection, the AlO_x/Al/AlO_x layer created a floating gate structure that can effectively transmit the weak electrical signals generated by biochemical reactions at the sensing interface to the channel layer of the device via the tunneling effect. This design prevented performance degradation typically caused by direct contact between the channel layer and liquid in conventional TFT biosensors. The prepared Bio-AIC IGZO TFT demonstrated a wide linear detection range between 1 fM and 1 μM, and exhibited high sensitivity of 4.04 dec⁻¹ with a detection limit as low as 0.23 fM (1.65 fg/mL) compared to the conventional Bio-IGZO TFT. Furthermore, the optimized biosensor had excellent reproducibility and selectivity for target RNA, demonstrating the potential for trace detection of biomarkers in early gastric cancer. In addition, the biosensor is scalable for detecting a wide range of biomarkers, providing a simple, high-performance strategy for achieving rapid RNA detection.

查看原文本刊更多论文

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Sensors and Actuators A-physical 工程技术-工程：电子与电气

CiteScore

8.10

自引率

6.50%

发文量

630

审稿时长

49 days

期刊介绍： Sensors and Actuators A: Physical brings together multidisciplinary interests in one journal entirely devoted to disseminating information on all aspects of research and development of solid-state devices for transducing physical signals. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical regularly publishes original papers, letters to the Editors and from time to time invited review articles within the following device areas: • Fundamentals and Physics, such as: classification of effects, physical effects, measurement theory, modelling of sensors, measurement standards, measurement errors, units and constants, time and frequency measurement. Modeling papers should bring new modeling techniques to the field and be supported by experimental results. • Materials and their Processing, such as: piezoelectric materials, polymers, metal oxides, III-V and II-VI semiconductors, thick and thin films, optical glass fibres, amorphous, polycrystalline and monocrystalline silicon. • Optoelectronic sensors, such as: photovoltaic diodes, photoconductors, photodiodes, phototransistors, positron-sensitive photodetectors, optoisolators, photodiode arrays, charge-coupled devices, light-emitting diodes, injection lasers and liquid-crystal displays. • Mechanical sensors, such as: metallic, thin-film and semiconductor strain gauges, diffused silicon pressure sensors, silicon accelerometers, solid-state displacement transducers, piezo junction devices, piezoelectric field-effect transducers (PiFETs), tunnel-diode strain sensors, surface acoustic wave devices, silicon micromechanical switches, solid-state flow meters and electronic flow controllers. Etc...