Open Access Nano Express

Electrically tunable solid-state silicon nanopore ion filter

Julien Vidal1,2, Maria E Gracheva2 and Jean-Pierre Leburton1,2*

Author Affiliations

1 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

2 Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

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Nanoscale Research Letters 2006, 2:61-68 doi:10.1007/s11671-006-9031-7


The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at:


Received:27 September 2006
Accepted:8 November 2006
Published:19 December 2006

© 2006 to the authors

Abstract

We show that a nanopore in a silicon membrane connected to a voltage source can be used as an electrically tunable ion filter. By applying a voltage between the heavily doped semiconductor and the electrolyte, it is possible to invert the ion population inside the nanopore and vary the conductance for both cations and anions in order to achieve selective conduction of ions even in the presence of significant surface charges in the membrane. Our model based on the solution of the Poisson equation and linear transport theory indicates that in narrow nanopores substantial gain can be achieved by controlling electrically the width of the charge double layer.

Keywords:
Ion channels; Artificial nanopore; Silicon materials; Nanofluidics

Nano Express

[1-22]

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NIRT-NSF Grant No. CCR 02-10843 and the NIH Grant PHS1-R01-HG003713A.

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