Graphene LC oscillator for biosensing applications

Graphene has been extensively explored due to its extraordinary properties. Through surface functionalization, it's possible to have it operating as a biosensor, being able to detect the target analytes with high sensitivity. Since biosensing is a key technology that, in combination with integrated microelectronics, may leverage new solutions to allow more flexible healthcare monitoring and treatment solutions, different approaches have been used to increase the performance of such sensors. In this paper, the use of a graphene oscillator that is comprised of an LC tank is evaluated as the readout core of a graphene biosensing device. The tank was implemented in Cadence using the UMC 18 µm CMOS technology, and the performance assessed using the available literature about graphene components and their properties. An oscillation frequency of 1.5 GHz was achieved, with a phase noise of -134 dB/Hz, at an offset of 10 MHz.