Organic thin film transistors for sensors, bioelectronic interfaces and bionics

Overview

Organic electronic devices are flexible, light weight and stretchable, which makes them an ideal candidate for integrating and interfacing with soft tissues in biological systems. An attractive attribute of organic electronic devices is the solution processibility of constituent layers, since solution-processable devices have the potential to be printed into complex designs and shapes, leading to integrated devices with multiple functionalities.

Particularly, organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) have the potential to offer low cost, easy to use and printable sensors for a variety of applications such as chemical sensing, explosive sensing, etc. Additionally, OTFTs have shown great promise for applications in biosensing and interaction with the biological world. For instance, OTFTs have been successfully used in in vivo recordings of brain activity, reagentless immunosensing and label-free DNA sensors.

Research activities

Research activities include:

• keeping up to date with research progress in this field
• fabrication of OTFTs
• characterisation of OTFTs
• developing new design and materials for OTFTs.

This is an experimental project. Once a specific structure of an OTFT is established, the various components of an OTFT will be deposited either by solution processing or by vacuum thermal evaporation. It will involve extensive experimental work using a variety of sophisticated equipment, including a system of glove boxes which has capacity for fabrication of organic electronic devices in an inert environment, in the Central Analytical Research Facility, Gardens Point. All characterisations of OTFT and complete analysis of critical parameters will be carried to study the possibilities of using the developed OTFT for sensing applications.

Outcomes

The aims of this project are:

• to explore OTFTs and develop OTFT designs for advanced sensing platforms that will have applications in lab-on-a-chip technologies, biointerface electronics and bionics.

The outcomes of this project are:

• the development of OTFTs for sensing platforms, provide a better understanding of device physics and uncover new device designs. Overall, it will contribute to advancing the field of organic biolectronics.

Skills and experience

You must have:

• a background in physics or equivalent.

It is also desired that you have skills and experience in:

• working on experimental research
• laboratory research work
• report writing
• presentation
• basic data analysis, for example: using Microsoft Excel.

Scholarships

You may be eligible to apply for a research scholarship.

Explore our research scholarships

Keywords

• organic electronics
• bioelectronics
• organic transistors
• biosensors
• sensors

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.