Organic Electrochemical Transistors and Wearable Electronics

Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are of high interest due to their ability to transduce ionic signals, such as those produced in biology, with relatively high gain at low operating voltages (<0.5V), making them ideal candidates for biosensing applications. Our group’s research spans from elucidating fundamental structure-property relations in mixed ionic-electronic organic materials to developing novel wearable biosensors. We use characterization (i.e. synchrotron X-ray scattering, device modelling, spectroscopy, electrochemical measurements) to develop a fundamental understanding of organic materials for OECT devices. Extrapolating from fundamental principles, our group has developed various biomimetic membranes to selectively sense metabolites, ions and hormones from various bodily fluids including sweat and saliva.

(a) Schematic illustrating OECT operation. (b) Photolithographically defined OECTs. (c) Schematic illustration of state-of-the-art patch-type wearable sweat sensor for biomarker detection.