From electronic to opto-electronic biosensors: an engineering view

Electronic engineering has played a significant role in biosensor design, at the primary transducer level, since the appearance of chemically sensitive field-effect transistors (CHEMFETs) in the seventies. The early promise of CHEMFETs could not easily be carried through into more advanced biosensors, e.g., immunosensors, not have CHEMFETs paved the way for a range of non-sensing bioelectronic devices. However, collaboration of electronic engineers and biosensor designers, at a level more fundamental than simple signal-processing instrumentation, was initiated. Such collaborations have led to the appearance of several very promising opto-electronic biosensors and in the use of micro-electronic fabrication techniques in, otherwise, conventional biosensors. It is now possible to foresee the wide use of integrated micro-optical biosensors in medicine and the possibility that integrated fault-tolerant biosensor arrays may start to address some of the severe problems of using biosensors in process control.