Project and fabrication of a BE SOI Tunnel-FET as biosensitive element

• Grant number: 17/26489-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): January 01, 2019
• Effective date (End): October 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: João Antonio Martino
• Grantee: Carlos Augusto Bergfeld Mori
• Host Institution: Escola Politécnica (EP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 19/23283-4 - Low-frequency noise measurements on SOI FinFETs operating as biosensitive elements, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Biosensors play a fundamental role on the improvement of life expectancy and its quality in a society, being extremely important to monitor in real time the development of diseases and even to prevent high-risk biological threats. Among the biosensitive platforms that are being studied and developed, micro and nanoelectronics devices built on SOI (Silicon-On-Insulator) substrates show great potential. The Laboratory of Integrable Systems of the Polytechnic School of the University of Sao Paulo projected and fabricated a new transistor called BE SOI MOSFET (Back-Enhanced Silicon-On-Insulator Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect-Transistor). This transistor may be entirely fabricated with technologies available in Brazil, and among its most significant characteristics are (i) the fabrication simplicity, with no doping process and only three photolithography steps; (ii) the flexibility of its use, potentially acting as nMOS or pMOS, depending only of the substrate bias and (iii) its potential to be used as a biosensor. This research project proposes for the first time the fabrication and electrical characterization of a new device, a back-enhanced SOI tunneling field-effect transistor (BE SOI Tunnel-FET), based on the structure of the BE SOI MOSFET, adding extra fabrication steps. This device will serve as a biosensitive platform, in which its performance and physical principles will be evaluated from the observation of the fabricated transistors characteristic curves (inserted or not in biological means) and from numerical simulations to study their physics. The use of glucose as a test element is proposed, given it is a substance thoroughly studied in the context of biosensors, which allows comparisons to the literature during the stage of sensibility tests of this device as a biosensitive element. (AU)