Photosynthetic Reaction Center (RC) is a transmembrane photoenzyme capable of converting absorbed photons into electron-hole pairs with almost unitary efficiency. The unique properties of this natural photoconverter attract considerable interest for its use as functional component in nanomaterials and bioelectronics devices. Implementation of RC into nanostructures or anchoring on devices’ electrode surfaces require the development of suitable chemical manipulation. Here we report our methods to embed this protein in soft nanostructures or to covalently attach it on surfaces without denaturating it or altering its chemical properties.
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Molecules, Thin films, Transistors, Biological research, Biological and chemical sensing, Chemical analysis, Organic semiconductors, Active remote sensing, Chemical detection
Organic thin film transistor (OTFT) sensors are capable of fast, sensitive and reliable detection of
a variety of analytes. They have been successfully tested towards many chemical and biological
"odor" molecules showing high selectivity, and displaying the additional advantage of being
compatible with plastic technologies. Their versatility is based on the possibility to control the
device properties, from molecular design up to device architecture. Here phenylene-thiophene
based organic semiconductors functionalized with ad hoc chosen side groups are used as active
layers in sensing OTFTs. These materials, indeed, combine the detection capability of organic
molecules (particularly in the case of bio-substituted systems) with the electronic properties of
the conjugated backbone. A new OTFT structure including Langmuir-Schäfer layer by layer
organic thin films is here proposed to perform chemical detection of organic vapors, including
vapor phase chiral molecules such as citronellol vapors, with a detection limit in the ppm range.
Thermally evaporated α6T based OTFT sensors are used as well to be employed as standard
system in order to compare sensors performances.
A poly(phenyleneethynylene) polymer bearing amino acid pendant groups is used as enantioselective active layer in solid-state sensing devices. The chiral analyte in the present study is menthol in both the natural (-) and synthetic (+) enantiomers. The polymer bearing amino acid chiral sites is demonstrated to interact more favorably with the natural menthol than the synthetic one in a quartz crystal microbalance revealing system. Promising perspectives are seen for the use of such polymers in chiral discriminating, chemically sensitive resistors or even transistors.
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