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The organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are largely applied as bio‐ and ion‐sensor devices due to their performance in an aqueous environment with electrochemical doping/dedoping (reversible redox reactions) of the semiconducting layer through ion injection and also low (around 1 V) operation potentials. Aiming for the complementary circuits' development and improvement of the sensors device, we report the application of spin coated polyaniline (PANI) in ambipolar OECT. The OECT operation is based on electrochemical protonation/deprotonation of PANI upon applied gate potential that was verified by cyclic voltammograms (CV) of PANI sample. The device operates in accumulation mode with on‐currents on the milliampere range due to the use of interdigitated array (IDA) microelectrodes architecture with a larger active area. Acid (HCl) doped PANI were applied in OECT device for comparison, and it presented improved performance with increasing drain‐source current up to 38%, reaching 4.8 mA for the n‐type device. This current increase is due to the narrower bandgap of doped PANI that affects the injection barrier. The HCl doped PANI was evaluated by UV‐Vis spectrophotometry and CV analysis. Using deionized water as electrolyte defunctionalized the PANI‐based OECT (no current modulation observed) because the absence of ions in the electrolyte interrupts the electrochemical doping. This is the opposite for the poly(3‐hexylthiophene) (P3HT)‐based electrolyte‐gated organic field‐effect transistor (EGOFET) due to the polymeric hydrophobicity nature that allows for field‐effect modulation in the electrolyte/semiconductor interface. The results presented may open new possibilities for bio‐ and ion‐sensors devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glucose oxidase (GOx) was immobilized on vanadium pentoxide xerogel (V2O5) onto a carbon-based screen-printed electrode to evaluate the possibility of constructing a V2O5/GOx biosensor. Structural characterizations of V2O5/GOx demonstrated a weak interaction between the species. Cyclic voltammetry results for V2O5/GOx after immobilization in 4.4 mmol/L of glucose, pH 5, in PBS medium indicated a stability tendency after several cycles and also an increase of total charge. The use of an electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance technique evidenced a mass loss after several cycles. Experimental studies using variations of glucose concentration and electrical characterization by extended gate field effect transistors is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: Galvanostatic electrodeposited thin films of polyaniline (PANI)/polypyrrole (PPY) blend were tested as chemical sensors and evaluated according to the relative monomer concentration in polymerization solution aiming to obtain a reliable reference field‐effect transistor able to be used as contrast sensing film. The blend material presented properties that can be controlled by the polymerization process. The films were produced using aniline (0.25 M) and pyrrole (0.25 M) mixed in five different proportions (90/10, 70/30, 50/50, 30/70, 10/90) with HCl (1.0 M) in an aqueous solution. The current density was 1 mA/cm2 for 300 s. The films were analyzed by their chronopotentiometric curves, thickness, reflectance spectroscopy, optical color parameters, and surface morphology. The characteristics and properties analyzed were correlated to the relative monomer concentration in the polymerization solution. The polymerization of PANI is favorable in aqueous acid solution compared to PPY, which resulted in thin films with properties varying from PANI down to PPY. The blend films presented controllable sensitivity when applied as sensing stage in field‐effect transistor devices as function of the relative monomer concentration. The sensitivity varied from 57 ± 1 mV/pH for the PANI sample, down to 25 ± 1 mV/pH for the PPY sample, presenting an exponential behavior. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018, 135, 46625. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orthogonal fluxgates operated with a dc bias can achieve lower noise levels by suppressing Barkhausen jumps. We constructed and mathematically modeled a small orthogonal fluxgate consisting of a NiFe electroplated Cu wire, surrounded by a pick-up solenoid. A large dc current was applied through the wire to keep the core in constant saturation. This ensures that the main permeability modulation mechanism is magnetization rotation. Several output parameters were analyzed: sensitivity, noise and the perming error amplitude, all with respect to two input parameters, constant and alternating excitation field component. A good agreement between the experimental data and the theoretical model was found, with higher deviations appearing when the excitation field was not high enough to saturate the core and domain wall movement becomes relevant. Measured sensitivities were highly dependent on the excitation amplitudes, but mostly in the hundreds of V/T, and noise levels of about 0.75 nT in the 0.1–10 Hz range were found. As for the perming, the sensor zero readout can vary about 20 μT if subjected to magnetic shocks of up to 4.8 mT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Galvanostaticaly electrodeposited polyaniline thin films were used as both potentiometric and optical pH chemical sensor. The galvanostatic deposition parameters were: deposited charge from 150 to 600 mC cm −2 , current density from 0.5 to 1.0 mA cm −2 and deposition time from 150 to 1200 s. The electrodeposited polyaniline thin films in these conditions presented passivation charge 150 ± 12 mC cm −2 . The variation of the deposition parameters led to the production of thin films with distinct properties and characteristics. Basically, they presented two distinct oxidation states. The set of films produced using a current density of 0.5 mA cm −2 showed the best performances for both sensors, reaching a sensitivity of 81 ± 1 mV pH −1 and 30 ± 3 pH −1 for the potentiometric and optical pH chemical sensor, respectively. This set of films presented the best performances because they had a partially oxidized structure, the emeraldine base, which has the largest protonation potential and reaches a high electrical conductivity. The understanding of the mechanisms involved in pH detection is discussed based on the structure-property relationship established by the characterization of the PANI thin films together with the polymer's electrochemical and optical mechanism of sensitivity to pH variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bias-enhanced reflective optochemical pH sensor with electrochromic polyaniline is presented. Polyaniline films were prepared by electrodeposition process, controlling the total amount of deposited charge by varying the deposition time. The electrochromic property of polyaniline was the main parameter for sensor development. A quick and easy reflective spectra measurement process was obtained using a handset spectrophotometer in the visible region. A film deposited for 120 min presented a linear response (sensitivity of 25/pH and linearity of 97%) for the integrated reflectance in the green band of the spectrum after insertion in buffer solutions with pH ranging from 2 to 8. The reflectance intensity increased by 92% for the applied bias voltage of 1000 mV. Sensitivity of the sensors increased by about 28% (32/pH) with applied bias voltage of 700 mV, and decreased by about 9% (29/pH) with applied bias voltage of 1000 mV. A corresponding slight decrease in linearity by about 4% (93%) was observed with applied bias voltage of 700 mV, which preserves the linearity value within a good range for use. The linearity decreases by about 20% (78%) with applied bias voltage of 1000 mV. Both facts together indicate the presence of an optimal operation point. The improvement in sensor performance is related to the bias effect over polyaniline protonation/deprotonation. The electrochromic property of the polyaniline films were investigated using the CIE L*a*b* color scale. The data indicated changes from the emeraldine base oxidation state of polyaniline, which is blue, in alkali medium, to the emeraldine salt conducting, which is green, in acid medium. Handset spectrophotometers can be used with PANI optochemical pH sensors working with reflective spectra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process complexity of a micromachined device is directly related to the number of layers needed. Miniature planar fluxgate magnetic sensors commonly use two or more layers of coils. The manufacture process of micromachined planar fluxgate sensors with all the coils contained in a single metal layer is here presented. The NiFe cores were electroplated through photoresist molds. Characterization in respect to noise levels and sensitivity are detailed discussed. Noise levels down to 40-nT rms in the 0.1-10 Hz range were achieved. Two different layouts are presented and one of them has the potential to further noise level reduction just by increasing either the excitation amplitude or the coils pitch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]