pH Quantification in Human Dermal Interstitial Fluid Using Ultra-Thin SOI Silicon Nanowire ISFETs and a High-Sensitivity Constant-Current Approach

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel approach to utilize silicon nanowires as high-sensitivity pH sensors. Our approach works based on fixing the current bias of silicon nanowires Ion Sensitive Field Effect Transistors (ISFETs) and monitor the resulting drain voltage as the sensing signal. By fine tuning the injected current levels, we can optimize the sensing conditions according to different sensor requirements. This method proves to be highly suitable for real-time and continuous measurements of biomarkers in human biofluids. To validate our approach, we conducted experiments, with real human sera samples to simulate the composition of human interstitial fluid (ISF), using both the conventional top-gate approach and the optimized constant current method. We successfully demonstrated pH sensing within the physiopathological range of 6.5 to 8, achieving an exceptional level of accuracy in this complex matrix. Specifically, we obtained a maximum error as low as 0.92% (equivalent to 0.07 pH unit) using the constant-current method at the optimal current levels (1.71% for top-gate). Moreover, by utilizing different pools of human sera with varying total protein content, we demonstrated that the protein content among patients does not impact the sensors’ performance in pH sensing. Furthermore, we tested real-human ISF samples collected from volunteers. The obtained accuracy in this scenario was also outstanding, with an error as low as 0.015 pH unit using the constant-current method and 0.178 pH unit in traditional top-gate configuration.