Molecular detection by liquid gated Hall effect measurement of graphene

Abstract

The Hall resistance obtained in liquid gated Hall effect measurement of graphene demonstrates a higher sensitivity than the sheet resistance and the gate-source current for L-histidine of different concentrations in the pM range. This indicates that the extra information offered by the liquid gated Hall measurement of graphene can improve the sensitivity of the transistor-based potentiometric biosensors, and it could also be a supplementary method to the amperometric techniques for electrochemically inactive molecules. Further analysis of the system suggests that the asymmetry of the electron-hole mobility induced by the ions in the liquid serves as the sensing mechanism. The calculation on the capacitance values shows that the quantum capacitance is only dominant near the "Dirac" point in our system. This conclusion is useful for many applications involving graphene-electrolyte systems, such as bio-sensing, energy storage, neural stimulation, and so on.