The interest in field-effect transistor (FET) based sensor devices is growing explosively due to their potential as biosensors in biomedical, environmental monitoring and security applications. Moreover, the commercialization of the device is being started in many groups, recently. The structure of the BioFET is basically the same as the conventional field-effect transistors (FETs) except for a liquid gate instead of the conventional gate. Therefore, the BioFETs have the same advantages of the conventional FET devices such as low power consumption, low fabrication cost, high sensitivity, and excellent compatibility with integrated circuits. Recently, nanowires have been used for the channel region of the devices due to the enhanced gate controllability and size compatibility to that of biological molecules for cell and protein studies.
In this talk, the basic operation of the silicon nanowire BioFETs will be discussed along with recent advances in the field. And a new concept of the nanowire structure, the honeycomb nanowire, will be talked with enhanced characteristics.