Organic Photovoltaic Application for New Insights Into Bio-Analytic Systems

Abstract

There have been many significant studies made during the last few decades of bio-analytic systems for detecting biomolecules for application to advanced nanotechnologies. A notable example is the convergence of bioanalytic systems and organic electronic devices, owing to the many advantages afforded by organic electronic devices. However, organic photovoltaics (OPVs) present a structural restriction on convergence with bio-analytic systems in spite of the clear merits of OPVs for bio-sensing, because it is not possible to modify the interface after thermal deposition of a metal electrode onto the active component. Here we present a reversible bio-analytic system based on OPVs. Crucial elements in the system design include a detachable gold anode laminated using the soft-contact method to manipulate the interface, and sensitive variation in device performance corresponding to the presence (or absence) of biomolecules. This brings about a dramatic change in the performances of the OPVs corresponding to bonding formation between biotin and streptavidin which further leads to superior sensitivity in the bio-analytic system. In addition, this bio-analytic system is reversible and can be easily. recycled due to the fact that the biotin-streptavidin bonding is broken with only a brief procedure.