Emelie Dahlskold, 18 October, 2022 | Dr Joshua Arthur
Joshua Arthur’s research career began after completing Professor Soniya Yambem’s capstone and vacation research project during his undergraduate studies in physics at QUT. Under Professor Yambem’s supervision, Joshua conducted his PhD studies in materials science.
In 2019, Joshua received the Endeavour Research Leadership Award to progress his work on understanding organic thin-film transistor technology capable of receiving biological signals and electronic interface devices that can seamlessly integrate with the human body have the potential to transform prosthetics into bioelectronic devices that mimic the functions of a real limb.
Design rules for electronic sensors
As part of his PhD research process, Joshua confirmed valuable knowledge about organic transistors and published design rules for changing the fundamental physics properties of devices that use them. Hygroscopic insulator field-effect transistors (HIFETs) are a class of low-voltage-operation organic transistors that have been used for biosensing applications—such as monitoring glucose or detecting solvents—through modification of the gate electrode.
“The transistors have three electrodes: the source, the drain, and the gate. The gate electrode is used to control the current that flows between the source and drain electrodes,” Joshua explained.
“Basically, we showed that improving the conductivity of the gate electrode resulted in better control of the current between the source and drain, which means a much better transistor overall. This is an important step toward designing sensors based on HIFETs.”
Early-career research success
Today, Dr Joshua Arthur works in the field of organic electronics at the QUT Centre for Biomedical Technologies.
The aim of his project is to develop and study organic transistors for selectively detecting ions in biofluids to determine their electrolyte composition. These devices could be used in health diagnostics to sense the sodium concentrations in urine samples, which could be very important for patients who need to regulate their sodium intake.
In 2022, Joshua was awarded one of the Centre’s 2022 internal funding grants for his research project ‘Selective multi-ion organic transistor sensors for analysis of biofluids’.
Joshua’s study and career path
- Bachelor of Science (Physics)
- Bachelor of Science (Honours) (Physics)
- Doctor of Philosophy, QUT Centre for Materials Science
- Research Associate, QUT Centre for Biomedical Technologies
This content has been adapted from the QUT Learning and Big Solutions (Labs) 2020
