Screening-Limited Response of NanoBiosensors

Abstract

Despite tremendous potential of highly sensitive electronic detection of bio-molecules by nanoscale biosensors for genomics and proteomic applications, many aspects of experimentally observed sensor response (S) are unexplained within consistent theoretical frameworks of kinetic response or electrical screening. In this paper, we combine analytic solutions of Poisson-Boltzmann and reaction-diffusion equations to show that the electrical response of nanobiosensor varies logarithmically with the concentration of target molecules, time, the salt concentration, and inversely with the fractal dimension of sensor surface. Our analysis provides a coherent theoretical interpretation of wide variety of puzzling experimental data that have so far defied intuitive explanation.