Biosensor Array for Label-Free Biomolecular Detection

Biosensors are one of the fundamental detection platforms in biotechnology. They take advantage of unique biomolecular interactions to capture and detect specific analytes on a surface. The detection versatility of biosensors has always been their key advantage and it has been demonstrated that they can detect almost any analyte such as DNA, proteins, metabolites, and even micro-organisms. However, the achievable SNR and detection DR of biosensors can be very low. This is due to the fact that the capturing processes in biosensors suffer from a significant amount of biological interference (i.e., non-specific bindings) and biochemical noise which typically necessitate the use of complex biochemical labeling processes and sophisticated detectors [1]. Hence, the main design challenge of biosensors is to increase the SNR and DR while minimizing the complexity of both the assay and the detector. Today, this is the main impediment in point-of-care (PoC) biosensors, particularly in high-performance applications such as molecular diagnostics and forensics.