Highly sensitive reduce graphene oxide — Molecular imprinted polymer organic thin film transistor for serine detection

The use of biomimetic sensor has attracted attention due to its sensitivity and selectivity. Molecular imprinted polymer (MIP) among the best synthetic biomimetic interfaces to detect target molecules. However MIP has low electrical conductivity. Sensor fabricated using high conductive polymer will possess a good sensitivity and short response time. Therefore, it is important to enhance the conductivity of MIP, thus it would directly influence charge carrier mobility of the polymer itself. The resulting rGO-MIP OTFT exhibit electrical conductivity of 3.10×10-3 Sm-1 at 0.4wt/vol% and MIP exhibit electrical conductivity of 7.16×10-4 Sm-1. The electrical conductivity of rGO-MIP increased about one in magnitude order compared to MIP. Moreover, this work reports the electrical performance of reduce graphene oxide-molecular imprinted polymer organic thin film transistor (rGO-MIP OTFT) for serine detection. rGO was introduced into MIP, to allow a highly conductive sensing material thus enhanced selectivity and sensitivity of the sensor. By analyzing the electrical performance of the sensors, the performances of OTFT sensor enhanced with rGO-MIP interlayer and OTFT sensor with MIP interlayer when exposed to serine analyte were obtained. The results showed that there were remarkable shifts of drain current obtained from OTFT sensor with rGO-MIP interlayer after exposed to serine analyte. Moreover, the sensitivity of OTFT sensor with rGO-MIP interlayer was nearly higher than the OTFT sensor with MIP interlayer. Hence, it proved that rGO successfully enhanced the sensing performance of OTFT sensor.