GMR biosensor arrays: a system perspective.

Giant magnetoresistive biosensors are becoming more prevalent for sensitive, quantifiable biomolecular detection. However, in order for magnetic biosensing to become competitive with current optical protein microarray technology, there is a need to increase the number of sensors while maintaining the high sensitivity and fast readout time characteristic of smaller arrays (1-8 sensors). In this paper, we present a circuit architecture scalable for larger sensor arrays (64 individually addressable sensors) while maintaining a high readout rate (scanning the entire array in less than 4s). The system utilizes both time domain multiplexing and frequency domain multiplexing in order to achieve this scan rate. For the implementation, we propose a new circuit architecture that does not use a classical Wheatstone bridge to measure the small change in resistance of the sensor. Instead, an architecture designed around a transimpedance amplifier is employed. A detailed analysis of this architecture including the noise, distortion, and potential sources of errors is presented, followed by a global optimization strategy for the entire system comprising the magnetic tags, sensors, and interface electronics. To demonstrate the sensitivity, quantifiable detection of two blindly spiked samples of unknown concentrations has been performed at concentrations below the limit of detection for the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Lastly, the multiplexing capability and reproducibility of the system was demonstrated by simultaneously monitoring sensors functionalized with three unique proteins at different concentrations in real-time.

GMR biosensor arrays: correction techniques for reproducibility and enhanced sensitivity.

Giant magnetoresistive biosensors possess great potential in biomedical applications for quantitatively detecting magnetically tagged biomolecules. Magnetic sensing does not suffer from the high background levels found in optical sensing modalities such as the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay translating into a technology with higher sensitivity. However, to reveal the full potential of these sensors and compensate for non-idealities such as temperature dependence, digital correction and calibration techniques are not only useful but imperative. Using these calibration techniques to correct for process variations and dynamic changes in the sensing environment (such as temperature and magnetic field), we are able to obtain extremely sensitive and, more importantly, reproducible results for quantifiable biomolecular reorganization. The reproducibility of the system was improved by over 3 x using digital correction techniques and the sensors are made temperature independent by using a novel background correction technique.