Zinc oxide and gold textured Janus nanowire integration in an impedimetric sensor for leptospirosis DNA-biomarker recognition

A "Janus particle" refers to the production of two materials in a single system and shows a difference in physical characteristics, and two surfaces participate in the formation with different chemistries. This research generated the Janus using a hybrid of zinc oxide (ZnO) and gold (Au) on the sensor surface toward making high-performance DNA sensors. The Janus ZnO/Au-textured film was synthesized via the one-step sol-gel method, which involves a suitable ratio of a mixture of ZnO sol seed solution. The synthesized Janus ZnO/Au-textured film undergoes a low-temperature aqueous hydrothermal route to synthesize quasi-one-dimensional nanowires. The average grain size in the Janus ZnO/Au nanotextured wire was 41.60 nm. The fabricated nanotextured wire was further optimized by tuning the thickness and characterized by XRD and high-resolution microscopy. Electrical characterization was conducted on the Janus ZnO/Au nanotextured wire coupled with an interdigitated electrode sensor to detect the specific leptospirosis DNA strand. The generated device is capable of detecting lower DNA concentration at 1 × 10-13 M with a sensitivity of 8.54 MΩ M-1 cm-2 . The high performance is attained on linear concentrations of 10-6 -10-13 M with the determination coefficient, "I = 135437.63C-3609.07" R2 = 0.9551. A potential strategy is proposed as a base for developing different high-performance sensors.