Beating the Nernst limit of 59mV/pH with double-gated nano-scale field-effect transistors and its applications to ultra-sensitive DNA biosensors

Electronic sensing of biomolecules is an area of immerse interest for semiconductor industry. Here we utilize the remarkable sensitivity of double-gated field-effect transistors above the fundamental Nernst limit (59mV/pH) in pH sensing to improve the sensitivity of biomolecule detection in electrolyte screening limited conditions. Our simulation results and compact models are broadly supported by various experiments and will have important implications for the design and optimization of low cost, large throughput, semiconductor based biosensors.