Detection of SARS-CoV-2 using dielectric modulated TFET-based biosensor

Attributable to the rapid increase in human infection of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared this disease outbreak as a pandemic. This outbreak can be tackled to some extent through proper management and early diagnosis. This work reports a biosensor based on vertical tunnel field-effect transistor (VTFET) developed for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 from the clinical samples through the analysis of its spike, envelope, and DNA proteins. Investigation of the sensitivity of the proposed sensor has been done by calculating the shift in drain current. The dielectric constant equivalent of the virus proteins is used to represent the hybridized biomolecules within the nanogaps. The sensitivity of this proposed sensor is found to be significantly high (order of 10⁶) showing the viability of the device to be a superior sensor. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis concerning DNA charge density is also performed. The effect of DNA charge density variation on the threshold voltage (V_th) and sensitivity have also been studied in this work. The proposed sensor is also investigated for its noise performance and observed the sensitivity with and without the effect of interface trap charges. Finally, the proposed sensor is benchmarked against the sensitivity of various FET-based biosensors already published earlier.