Radiation tolerant nano-FED biosensing for space application

A p-type polysilicon nanowire and silicon nano-channel combination based biosensor was developed, which has the potential to detect pathogens and thus protect crew safety aboard long-term manned flight programmes in high radiation space flights. This study outlines structures, which compose the biosensor, and demonstrates that the nano-device utilised herein is total dose radiation hardened. Highly doped polysilicon nanowires (30–100 nm) in nano-field-effect device (FED) were fabricated on silicon/silicon dioxide wafers and insulated with a thin polyimide layer. When the targeted gene, Escherichia coli DH5 alpha 16S rRNA, incubated on the device surface, the constant overall impedance increased or decreased depending on the electronic charge, mass and composition of the target molecule. All measurements were carried under 25 MeV S-Band linear accelerator followed by impedance measurements. Current sets of experiments show these nano-FED can form the basis of a robust, very sensitive handheld tool for pathogen detection in space application.