Functional Nanopores: A Solid-state Concept for Artificial Reaction Compartments and Molecular Factories

CHIMIA

卷:70

Gabriel Puebla-Hellmann¹  Marcel Mayor²  Emanuel Lörtscher³ 

[1] Department of Chemistry, University of Basel, St. Johanns-Ring 19, CH-4056 Basel, IBM Research – Zurich Säumerstrasse 4, CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland. [e-mail];

[2] Department of Chemistry, University of Basel, St. Johanns-Ring 19, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland;

[3] IBM Research – Zurich, Säumerstrasse 4, CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland;

关键词: Bio-mimicking;    Cell;    Compartmentalization;    Feedback;    Molecular factories;    Molecular transport;   

DOI  :  10.2533/chimia.2016.432

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

On the road towards the long-term goal of the NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering to create artificial molecular factories, we aim at introducing a compartmentalization strategy based on solid-state silicon technology targeting zeptoliter reaction volumes and simultaneous electrical contact to ensembles of well-oriented molecules. This approach allows the probing of molecular building blocks under a controlled environment prior to their use in a complex molecular factory. Furthermore, these ultra-sensitive electrical conductance measurements allow molecular responses to a variety of external triggers to be used as sensing and feedback mechanisms. So far, we demonstrate the proof-of-concept by electrically contacting self-assembled mono-layers of alkane-dithiols as an established test system. Here, the molecular films are laterally constrained by a circular dielectric confinement, forming a so-called 'nanopore'. Device yields above 85% are consistently achieved down to sub-50 nm nanopore diameters. This generic platform will be extended to create distributed, cascaded reactors with individually addressable reaction sites, including interconnecting micro-fluidic channels for electrochemical communication among nanopores and sensing sites for reaction control and feedback. In this scientific outlook, we will sketch how such a solid-state nanopore concept can be used to study various aspects of molecular compounds tailored for operation in a molecular factory.

【 授权许可】

Unknown