Effects of UV-Ozone Treatment on Sensing Behaviours of EGFETs with Al2O3 Sensing Film

The effects of UV-ozone (UVO) treatment on the sensing behaviours of extended-gate field-effect transistors (EGFETs) that use Al2O3 as the sensing film have been investigated. The Al2O3 sensing films are UVO-treated with various duration times and the corresponding EGFET sensing behaviours, such as sensitivity, hysteresis, and long-term stability, are electrically evaluated under various measurement conditions. Physical analysis is also performed to characterize the surface conditions of the UVO-treated sensing films using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. It is found that UVO treatment effectively reduces the buried sites in the Al2O3 sensing film and subsequently results in reduced hysteresis and improved long-term stability of EGFET. Meanwhile, the observed slightly smoother Al2O3 film surface post UVO treatment corresponds to decreased surface sites and slightly reduced pH sensitivity of the Al2O3 film. The sensitivity degradation is found to be monotonically correlated with the UVO treatment time. A treatment time of 10 min is found to yield an excellent performance trade-off: clearly improved long-term stability and reduced hysteresis at the cost of negligible sensitivity reduction. These results suggest that UVO treatment is a simple and facile method to improve the overall sensing performance of the EGFETs with an Al2O3 sensing film.

[1]  C. Klapperich,et al.  Mechanical and chemical analysis of plasma and ultraviolet-ozone surface treatments for thermal bonding of polymeric microfluidic devices. , 2007, Lab on a chip.

[2]  M. Esashi,et al.  ISFET's using inorganic gate thin films , 1979, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[3]  J. Chou,et al.  Sensitivity and hysteresis effect in Al2O3 gate pH-ISFET , 2001 .

[4]  W. Bunjongpru,et al.  Surface modification of silicon dioxide, silicon nitride and titanium oxynitride for lactate dehydrogenase immobilization. , 2015, Biosensors & bioelectronics.

[5]  Hiroshi Kawarada,et al.  Low drift and small hysteresis characteristics of diamond electrolyte-solution-gate FET , 2010 .

[6]  N. Jaffrezic‐Renault,et al.  Development of a capacitive chemical sensor based on Co(II)-phthalocyanine acrylate-polymer/HfO2/SiO2/Si for detection of perchlorate , 2015 .

[7]  Francesca Campabadal,et al.  A novel biosensor based on hafnium oxide: Application for early stage detection of human interleukin-10 , 2012 .

[8]  M. Jamal Deen,et al.  Study of the electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistor (EISFET) with applications in biosensor design , 2007, Microelectron. Reliab..

[9]  P. Batista,et al.  An embedded measurement system for the electrical characterization of EGFET as a pH sensor , 2013, 1303.3306.

[10]  E. Kohn,et al.  O-terminated nano-diamond ISFET for applications in harsh environment , 2008 .

[11]  Chan Woo Park,et al.  Modified ion sensitive field effect transistor sensors having an extended gate on a thick dielectric , 2010 .

[12]  P Bergveld,et al.  Development, operation, and application of the ion-sensitive field-effect transistor as a tool for electrophysiology. , 1972, IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering.

[13]  D. Reinhoudt,et al.  Sensitivity control of ISFETs by chemical surface modification , 1985 .

[14]  S. Martinoia,et al.  An organic transistor-based system for reference-less electrophysiological monitoring of excitable cells , 2015, Scientific Reports.

[15]  J. V. Spiegel,et al.  The extended gate chemically sensitive field effect transistor as multi-species microprobe☆ , 1983 .

[16]  Michel Calame,et al.  Understanding the electrolyte background for biochemical sensing with ion-sensitive field-effect transistors. , 2012, ACS nano.

[17]  Piet Bergveld,et al.  Thirty years of ISFETOLOGY ☆: What happened in the past 30 years and what may happen in the next 30 years , 2003 .

[18]  Marcelo Mulato,et al.  Extended gate field effect transistor using V2O5 xerogel sensing membrane by sol–gel method , 2009 .

[19]  B. S. Kang,et al.  Role of Gate Oxide in AlGaN/GaN High-Electron-Mobility Transistor pH Sensors , 2008 .

[20]  Ying-Zong Juang,et al.  Extended-gate field-effect transistor packed in micro channel for glucose, urea and protein biomarker detection , 2015, Biomedical Microdevices.

[21]  Narendra Kumar,et al.  Sensitivity Enhancement of Electrolyte–Insulator–Semiconductor Sensors Using Mesotextured and Nanotextured Dielectric Surfaces , 2015, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[22]  J. Eijkel,et al.  A novel description of ISFET sensitivity with the buffer capacity and double-layer capacitance as key parameters , 1995 .

[23]  Structural and Electrical Properties of an Electrolyte-insulator-metal Device with Variations in the Surface Area of the Anodic Aluminum Oxide Template for pH Sensors , 2015 .

[24]  Wen-Yaw Chung,et al.  Separate structure extended gate H+-ion sensitive field effect transistor on a glass substrate , 2000 .

[25]  I. Iatsunskyi,et al.  Structural and XPS characterization of ALD Al2O3 coated porous silicon , 2015 .

[26]  C. S. Wong,et al.  Surface modification of polystyrene beads by ultraviolet/ozone treatment and its effect on gelatin coating , 2010 .

[27]  Sang Kyu Kim,et al.  Ion-Sensitive Field-Effect Transistor for Biological Sensing , 2009, Sensors.

[28]  P. Bergveld,et al.  Operation of chemically sensitive field-effect sensors as a function of the insulator-electrolyte interface , 1983, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[29]  W. Hung,et al.  High-performance extended gate field-effect-transistor-based dissolved carbon dioxide sensing system with a packaged microreference electrode , 2014 .

[30]  M. J. Milgrew,et al.  Matching the Transconductance Characteristics of CMOS ISFET Arrays by Removing Trapped Charge , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[31]  Chao-Sung Lai,et al.  Non-ideal effects improvement of SF6 plasma treated hafnium oxide film based on electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor structure for pH-sensor application , 2010, Microelectron. Reliab..

[32]  LUC BOUSSW,et al.  THE ROLE OF BURIED OH SITES IN THE RESPONSE MECHANISM OF INORGANIC-GATE pH-SENSITIVE ISFETs , 2001 .

[33]  J. Rasaiah,et al.  Proton transfer and the mobilities of the H+ and OH- ions from studies of a dissociating model for water. , 2011, The Journal of chemical physics.

[34]  Yang Hui Liu,et al.  Atomic layer deposited Al2O3 films for anti-reflectance and surface passivation applications , 2014 .

[35]  Albert van den Berg,et al.  Al2O3/silicon nanoISFET with near ideal nernstian response. , 2011, Nano letters.

[36]  Tai-Ping Sun,et al.  Study on the Time-Dependent Slow Response of the Tin Oxide pH Electrode , 2006, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[37]  W. Ko,et al.  A generalized theory of an electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistor , 1986, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[38]  Pedro Barquinha,et al.  Extended-Gate ISFETs Based on Sputtered Amorphous Oxides , 2013, Journal of Display Technology.

[39]  P. Woias,et al.  Slow pH response effects of silicon nitride ISFET sensors , 1998 .

[40]  C. Hagendorf,et al.  Simple Cleaning and Conditioning of Silicon Surfaces with UV/Ozone Sources☆ , 2014 .

[41]  Chao-Sung Lai,et al.  Hydrogen ion sensing characteristics of IGZO/Si electrode in EGFET , 2014 .

[42]  G Borghs,et al.  Glutamate sensing with enzyme-modified floating-gate field effect transistors. , 2009, Biosensors & bioelectronics.

[43]  Christofer Toumazou,et al.  ISFET characteristics in CMOS and their application to weak inversion operation , 2009 .

[44]  John R. Vig.  UV/ozone cleaning of surfaces , 1976 .

[45]  ALD growth, thermal treatments and characterisation of Al2O3 layers , 2008 .

[46]  Peter Woias,et al.  Modelling the short-time response of ISFET sensors , 1995 .

[47]  Lei Wang,et al.  Effect of oxygen plasma treatment on the performance of AlGaN/GaN ion-sensitive field-effect transistors , 2017, Diamond and Related Materials.

[48]  Sergio Martinoia,et al.  Modeling H/sup +/-sensitive FETs with SPICE , 1992 .

[49]  Po-Hung Yang,et al.  CMOS Open-Gate Ion-Sensitive Field-Effect Transistors for Ultrasensitive Dopamine Detection , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[50]  Wen-Yaw Chung,et al.  Study on extended gate field effect transistor with tin oxide sensing membrane , 2000 .

[51]  R. Stoop,et al.  Implementing Silicon Nanoribbon Field-Effect Transistors as Arrays for Multiple Ion Detection , 2016, Biosensors.

[52]  Characteristics of silicon nitride after O/sub 2/ plasma surface treatment for pH-ISFET applications , 2001, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[53]  Vinod Kumar Khanna.  Remedial and adaptive solutions of ISFET non‐ideal behaviour , 2013 .