Engineering Low Noise Organic Electrochemical Transistors for Electrophysiology Applications
type: CreativeWork
description: Understanding how the nervous system functions has always been one of the most difficult challenges the medical community has faced. Despite the progress made so far, the ability of scientists to treat brain disorders has been severely limited by the complexity of the nervous system and the quality of the information derived from recording devices. A device that holds great potential for recording high quality electrophysiology signals is the organic electrochemical transistor (OECT). OECTs have been fabricated onto flexible substrates from biocompatible materials and have been shown to provide higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than electrodes. Their unique properties can pave the way for enhanced performance neural interfaces whilst minimising the invasiveness of the recording method. In this study, a thorough analysis of the noise characteristics of OECTs was performed with the greater aim of utilising these findings to further improve the performance of OECTs in various in vitro and in vivo environments. From an engineering perspective, different parameters such as the device geometry and the thickness of the channel film were tuned to minimise the intrinsic noise of an OECT. OECTs with different overlap between the conducting polymer and the source-drain gold contacts were fabricated. It is shown that the contact overlap reduced the frequency response of OECTs without affecting the noise level, suggesting that a good Ohmic contact is achieved. The effect of the thickness of the polymer film was also studied, indicating that noise can be further reduced as a function of increased channel thickness. This effect was observed up to a specific polymer thickness, above which the noise level reached a plateau. These findings allow to design OECTs that exhibit record low noise and lead to the establishment of new design rules. To further understand the origins of noise in OECTs, we applied these design rules and tested the performance of our devices under different bia…
abstract: Understanding how the nervous system functions has always been one of the most difficult challenges the medical community has faced. Despite the progress made so far, the ability of scientists to treat brain disorders has been severely limited by the complexity of the nervous system and the quality of the information derived from recording devices. A device that holds great potential for recording high quality electrophysiology signals is the organic electrochemical transistor (OECT). OECTs have been fabricated onto flexible substrates from biocompatible materials and have been shown to provide higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than electrodes. Their unique properties can pave the way for enhanced performance neural interfaces whilst minimising the invasiveness of the recording method. In this study, a thorough analysis of the noise characteristics of OECTs was performed with the greater aim of utilising these findings to further improve the performance of OECTs in various in vitro and in vivo environments. From an engineering perspective, different parameters such as the device geometry and the thickness of the channel film were tuned to minimise the intrinsic noise of an OECT. OECTs with different overlap between the conducting polymer and the source-drain gold contacts were fabricated. It is shown that the contact overlap reduced the frequency response of OECTs without affecting the noise level, suggesting that a good Ohmic contact is achieved. The effect of the thickness of the polymer film was also studied, indicating that noise can be further reduced as a function of increased channel thickness. This effect was observed up to a specific polymer thickness, above which the noise level reached a plateau. These findings allow to design OECTs that exhibit record low noise and lead to the establishment of new design rules. To further understand the origins of noise in OECTs, we applied these design rules and tested the performance of our devices under different bia…
author: Polyravas, Anastasios
language: eng
keywords: organic electrochemical transistor, bioelectronics, noise analysis, electrophysiology
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/e2b9484e-879c-44eb-8cf0-c3876f7ace0b/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2021-06-30
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:14Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.76912