Integrated Biological-Semiconductor Devices

The advent of semiconductor devices with nanoscale dimensions creates the potential to integrate nanoelectronics and optoelectronic devices with a great variety of biological systems. Moreover, the advances in nanotechnology are opening the way to achieving direct electrical contact of nanoelectronic structures with electrically and electrochemically active subcellular structures-including ion channels, receptors, and transmembrane proteins such as bacteriorhodopsin. Direct electrical interfacing at the biomolecular level opens the possibility of monitoring and controlling critical biological functions and processes in unprecedented ways, and portends a vast array of possibilities such as new classes of prosthetic devices, medical monitoring devices, medical delivery systems, and patient monitoring systems, as well as other applications. This article describes the salient properties of relevant biological structures and nanostructures. Advances in integrating man-made nanostructures with biological structures, including biomolecules, are described as well as the properties,characteristics, and functions of integrated nanoelectronic-biological structures. Future directions based on these prototype systems are highlighted.