Chemical Sensors Generated on Wafer-Scale Epitaxial Graphene for Application to Front-Line Drug DetectionShow others and affiliations
2019 (English)In: Sensors, E-ISSN 1424-8220, Vol. 19, no 10, article id 2214Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Generation of large areas of graphene possessing high quality and uniformity will be a critical factor if graphene-based devices/sensors are to be commercialized. In this work, epitaxial graphene on a 2" SiC wafer was used to fabricate sensors for the detection of illicit drugs (amphetamine or cocaine). The main target application is on-site forensic detection where there is a high demand for reliable and cost-efficient tools. The sensors were designed and processed with specially configured metal electrodes on the graphene surface by utilizing a series of anchors where the metal contacts are directly connected on the SiC substrate. This has been shown to improve adhesion of the electrodes and decrease the contact resistance. A microfluidic system was constructed to pump solutions over the defined graphene surface that could then act as a sensor area and react with the target drugs. Several prototypic systems were tested where non-covalent interactions were used to localize the sensing components (antibodies) within the measurement cell. The serendipitous discovery of a wavelength-dependent photoactivity for amphetamine and a range of its chemical analogs, however, limited the general application of these prototypic systems. The experimental results reveal that the drug molecules interact with the graphene in a molecule dependent manner based upon a balance of π -stacking interaction of the phenyl ring with graphene (p-doping) and the donation of the amine nitrogens lone pair electrons into the π - π *-system of graphene (n-doping).
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
NLM (Medline) , 2019. Vol. 19, no 10, article id 2214
Keywords [en]
epitaxial graphene, forensics, illicit drugs, microfluidics, photoactivity, sensors
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-39057DOI: 10.3390/s19102214Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85066874691OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-39057DiVA, id: diva2:1331129
2019-06-262019-06-262024-05-22Bibliographically approved