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Fabrication and microfluidic analysis of graphene-based molecular communication receiver for Internet of Nano Things (IoNT).

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Kuscu, Murat 
Dinc, Ergin 
Akhavan, Shahab 
Akan, Ozgur B 

Abstract

Bio-inspired molecular communications (MC), where molecules are used to transfer information, is the most promising technique to realise the Internet of Nano Things (IoNT), thanks to its inherent biocompatibility, energy-efficiency, and reliability in physiologically-relevant environments. Despite a substantial body of theoretical work concerning MC, the lack of practical micro/nanoscale MC devices and MC testbeds has led researchers to make overly simplifying assumptions about the implications of the channel conditions and the physical architectures of the practical transceivers in developing theoretical models and devising communication methods for MC. On the other hand, MC imposes unique challenges resulting from the highly complex, nonlinear, time-varying channel properties that cannot be always tackled by conventional information and communication tools and technologies (ICT). As a result, the reliability of the existing MC methods, which are mostly adopted from electromagnetic communications and not validated with practical testbeds, is highly questionable. As the first step to remove this discrepancy, in this study, we report on the fabrication of a nanoscale MC receiver based on graphene field-effect transistor biosensors. We perform its ICT characterisation in a custom-designed microfluidic MC system with the information encoded into the concentration of single-stranded DNA molecules. This experimental platform is the first practical implementation of a micro/nanoscale MC system with nanoscale MC receivers, and can serve as a testbed for developing realistic MC methods and IoNT applications.

Description

Keywords

4613 Theory Of Computation, 46 Information and Computing Sciences, 40 Engineering, 7 Affordable and Clean Energy

Journal Title

Scientific Reports

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2045-2322
2045-2322

Volume Title

11

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group
Sponsorship
European Research Council (616922)
Tis work was supported in part by the ERC (Project MINERVA, ERC-2013-CoG #616922) and by the AXA Research Fund (AXA Chair for Internet of Everything at Koc University).