Metallic Flexible NiTi Wire Microcrack Transducer for Label-Free Impedimetric Sensing of Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: Flexible biosensors offer rapid and low-cost diagnostics but are often limited by the mechanical and electrochemical instability of polymer-based designs in biological media. Here, we introduce a metallic flexible microcrack transducer that exploits the intrinsic deformability of superelastic nickel-titanium (NiTi) for label-free impedimetric detection. Mechanical bending of NiTi wires spontaneously generates martensitic-phase microcracks whose metal-gap-metal geometry forms the active transduction sites, where functional interfacial layers and captured analytes modulate the local dielectric environment and govern the impedance response. Our approach imparts a novel dielectric character to the alloy, enabling its unexplored application in the megahertz (MHz) frequency domain (0.01-10 MHz)

SUBMITTER: Ozlu Turk G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12839385 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature