Electrical characterization of deoxyribonucleic acid hybridization in metal-oxide-semiconductor-like structures

In this work, metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS)-like sensors in which deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) strands are covalently immobilized either on Si oxide or on a gold surface were electrically characterized. Si oxide fabrication process allowed us to have a surface insensitive to the solution pH. A significant shift in the flat band voltage was measured after single strand DNA immobilization (+0.47 +/- 0.04 V) and after the complementary strand binding (+0.07 +/- 0.02 V). The results show that DNA sensing can be performed using a MOS structure which can be easily integrated in a more complex design, thus avoiding the problems related to the integration of micro-electrochemical cells.