Mobile devices for the personalized detection of health and environmental hazards are becoming the basis for futuristic sensing technologies. In recent decades, air and environmental pollution levels have risen globally. Therefore, environmental protection must be strengthened by developing sensors that detect pollutants. The monitoring of these pollutants with high spatial coverage requires inexpensive electronic gas sensors and self-sustainable sensing systems that can be deployed everywhere. This dissertation reports on technological developments to provide solutions for inexpensive, compact, power-efficient, and easily deployable toxic gas sensors and integrated systems using semiconducting metal-oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs).

The next technological revolution, Industry 4.0, is envisioned as a digitally connected ecosystem where machines and gadgets are driven by artificial intelligence. By 2025, more than 75 billion devices are projected to serve this revolution. Many of which are to be integrated into the fabrics of everyday life in the form of smart wireless sensors. Still, two major challenges should be addressed to realize truly wireless and wearable sensors. First, the sensors should be flexible and stretchable, allowing for comfortable wearing. Second, the electronics should scavenge the energy it requires entirely from the environment, thus, eliminating the need for batteries, which are bulky, create ecological problems, etc. By addressing these two challenges, this dissertation paves the way for truly wearable sensors.

Implantable medical devices (IMD) and neuroprostheses are finding applications in new therapies thanks to advancements in microelectronics, sensors, RF communications, and medicine, which have resulted in embedding more functions in IMDs that occupy smaller spaces down to millimeters and consume less power, while offering therapies for more complex diseases and disabilities. I will address the latest developments in key building blocks for state-of-the-art IMDs.

The “KAUST Research Conference on New Trends in Biosensors and Bioelectronics” aims to give an overview of the most recent efforts in bioelectronics that tackle the “interface” problem and overcome the limits of the current technologies by generating new materials/architectures/device components. With its truly interdisciplinary nature, this conference will bring scientists from different disciplines together.