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1900671 (1 of 9) © 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Printed Highly Ordered Conductive Polymer Nanowires
Doped with Biotinylated Polyelectrolytes for Biosensing
Applications
Qiannan Xue, Qikun Wang, Ziyu Han, Ning Tang, Cheng Zhou, Wenwei Pan,
Yanyan Wang, and Xuexin Duan*
DOI: 10.1002/admi.201900671
interests, the high fabrication cost, compli-
cated constructions of the device, and mul-
tiple functionalization steps hinder their
incorporation into real applications.[8] In
general, there are two strategies to fabricate
nanowire devices: top down approach uses
conventional lithography (e.g., e-beam)
to fabricate the required nanostructures
which can make homogeneous nanowires
array however it is suffered by the high
fabrication cost and material limitations.
Bottom up approaches construct the sen-
sors using chemical synthesized nanowires
as building blocks which are typically
driven by self-assembly.[9] Since the nano-
wires are very small in size, it is very dif-
ficult to achieve repeatable devices with
highly ordered nanowires. There is an urgent need to develop
low-cost, simple, and reliable approach for nanowire device
preparation.[10] Alternative nanoscale lithography approach
featured with cost-effectiveness has been developed to fabricate
nanowires, which triggered a lot research interests.[11]
Very recently, we developed a nanoscale printing approach
which uses aqueous solution of conductive polymers as inks.
Highly ordered nanowires could be printed on various sub-
strates through imprinted soft nanomold at a relatively low
cost and without the requirement of cleanroom facilities.[12]
Such techniques have been successfully applied to fabricate
nanowires based chemresistive type of gas sensors for volatile
organic compounds (VOC) detection.[13] In this work, we
applied this approach to fabricate impedimetric biosensor based
on highly ordered biotin doped conductive polymer nanowires
array. Particularly, we developed biofunctional nanomaterials
as inks direct for nanowires fabrication and functionalization,
which is a key part of the nanoscale biosensor preparation.
Existing methods generally require multiple surface function-
alization steps, which may bring uncertainties. Stability of
functional groups on nanowires is crucial for the performance
of biosensor. Here, the biofunctional groups were directly car-
ried on the nanowires surface by doping the conductive poly-
mers with PEGylated biotin-derivatized polyelectrolytes which
enables a direct biofunctionalization on the nanowire surface
with high repeatability and less biofouling and avoids the mul-
tiple postsurface functionalization steps. After conjugation with
streptavidin (SAv) and biotinylated antibodies, the fabricated
The demand for fast and ultratrace biomarkers detection is increasing in
bioanalytical chemistry. In this work, highly ordered nanowires array and
sensor integration are achieved with nanoscale printing approach. Nega-
tively charged poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)–poly(styrenesulfonate)
doped with positively charged PEGylated biotin-derivatized polyelectrolytes
results a direct biofunctionalization on the nanowire surface without multiple
postmodification steps. It provides homogeneous dispersed biofunctional
sites and nonfouling surface on the nanowires. The ordered nanowires array
enables the immunosensor to detect biotargets quickly and ultrasensitively.
The nanowires impedimetric immunosensor is demonstrated for specific bio-
markers detection and achieved a minimum responsive concentration as low
as 10 pg mL−1 for protein biomarker and 10 CFU mL−1 for pathogen.
Dr. Q. Xue, Q. Wang, Z. Han, Dr. N. Tang, C. Zhou, W. Pan, Dr. Y. Wang,
Prof. X. Duan
State Key Laboratory of Precision Measuring Technology
and Instruments
School of Precision Instruments and Optoelectronics Engineering
Tianjin University
Tianjin 300072, China
E-mail: xduan@tju.edu.cn
The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article
can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.201900671.
Nanowires
1. Introduction
In recent years, there is large demand for developing biosensing
devices with high sensitivity, low power assumption, low-cost,
user-friendliness, and rapid diagnosis.[1] Nanoscale biosensors
integrated with specific interactions (e.g., antigen–antibody reac-
tions) could provide stable and excellent selectivity which have
been largely applied for bioanalytical chemistry.[2] Due to the
rapid development of nanotechnology, nanoscale transducers
(e.g., nanotubes, nanowires, nanoparticles, etc.) have been widely
used in various biosensors.[3] Among all these nanostructures,
1D nanotransducers,[4] such as nanowires[5] and nanofibers[6]
are considered as the most promising structures for realizing
ultrasensitive biosensing because of their high surface-to-
volume ratio and less steric hindrance for capture the targets.[7]
Though nanowires based sensors have triggered many research
Adv. Mater. Interfaces 2019, 6, 1900671
