Vertical Gold Nanowires Stretchable Electrochemical Electrodes

Qingfeng Zhai, Yan Wang, Shu Gong, Yunzhi Ling, Lim Wei Yap, Yiyi Liu, Joseph Wang, George P. Simon, Wenlong Cheng

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

61 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Conventional electrodes produced from gold or glassy carbon are outstanding electrochemical platforms for biosensing applications due to their chemical inertness and wide electrochemical window, but are intrinsically rigid and planar in nature. Hence, it is challenging to seamlessly integrate them with soft and curvilinear biological tissues for real-time wearable or implantable electronics. In this work, we demonstrate that vertically gold nanowires (v-AuNWs) possess an enokitake-like structure, with the nanoparticle (head) on one side and nanowires (tail) on the opposite side of the structure, and can serve as intrinsically stretchable, electrochemical electrodes due to the stronger nanowire-elastomer bonding forces preventing from interfacial delamination under strains. The exposed head side of the electrode comprising v-AuNWs can achieve a detection limit for H2O2 of 80 μM, with a linear range of 0.2-10.4 mM at 20% strain, with a reasonably high sensitivity using chronoamperometry. This excellent electrochemical performance in the elongated state, in conjunction with low-cost wet-chemistry fabrication, demonstrates that v-AuNWs electrodes may become a next-generation sensing platform for conformally integrated, in vivo biodiagnostics.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)13498-13505
Number of pages8
JournalAnalytical Chemistry
Volume90
Issue number22
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Nov 2018

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