Novel concepts for silicon-based biosensors

Microfabricated semiconductor devices are becoming increasingly relevant al so for (bio-)chemical sensors. The techniques will have a crucial impact in application fields such as medicine, food technology, environment. chemist ry and biotechnology as well as information processing. Therefore, scientis ts and engineers are interested in the analytical benefits of miniaturised and microfabricated sensors. In this paper. novel concepts for silicon-base d sensors are discussed: Fabrication of thin films by means of pulsed laser deposition technique: enzyme immobilisation by means of heterobi functiona l cross-linking; three-dimensionally structured silicon-based chemical sens ors coupled with biomolecules: and the realisation of biohybrid sensors by immobilising living cells or intact chemoreceptors to silicon transducers.