Fabrication of solid-state nanopores

Abstract

Nanopores are valuable single-molecule sensing tools that have been widely applied to the detection of DNA, RNA, proteins, viruses, glycans, etc. The prominent sensing platform is helping to improve our health-related quality of life and accelerate the rapid realization of precision medicine. Solid-state nanopores have made rapid progress in the past decades due to their flexible size, structure and compatibility with semiconductor fabrication processes. With the development of semiconductor fabrication techniques, materials science and surface chemistry, nanopore preparation and modification technologies have made great breakthroughs. To date, various solid-state nanopore materials, processing technologies, and modification methods are available to us. In the review, we outline the recent advances in nanopores fabrication and analyze the virtues and limitations of various membrane materials and nanopores drilling techniques.

Recent advances in nanopore-based analysis for carbohydrates and glycoconjugates

“…Solid-state nanopores are usually fabricated in thin (<50 nm) synthetic membranes, which have the advantages of high stability, good mechanical properties, and adjustable size. 48–50 Silicon-based materials, 51 glass, 52 alumina, 53 graphene oxide, 54 carbon–nitrogen compounds, 55 polyethylene terephthalate (PET), 56 and polycarbonate (PC) 57 are commonly used for the preparation of solid-state nanopores. 58 A wide variety of materials have also driven the development of fabrication techniques for solid-state nanopores.…”

Single-Molecule Discrimination and the Specific Binding Properties of the Lipopolysaccharides with a Solid-State Nanopore sensor

“…The electric pulse breakdown process was controlled by finely controlling the current and the step length, the breakdown current is generally around 300 nA under 16 V for SiNx of 20 nm in thickness. The details of nanopore fabrication with SiNx nanochips via dielectric breakdown were reported previously 86,88,98 . The size of the nanopores was calculated first based on a theoretical derivation under nanopore quasi-1D resistance approximation plus access resistances:…”

The signal-to-noise ratio improvement of solid-state nanopore sensors

“…Such ion channels are vulnerable to instability due to the brittleness of lipid membranes and are subject to conformational changes as a result of external environmental factors such as pH, ion concentration, and temperature [4].In addition, biological nanopores have fixed pore sizes and profiles, limiting the application of various biomolecules for detection. Compared to biological nanopores, solidstate nanopores (silicon nitride, graphene, boron nitride, MoS 2 , Hfo 2 , and glass nanopores) emerging in the 21st century exhibit advantages such as tunable pore size and channel length, high stability, and potential integration of devices compatible with semiconductor processes to compensate for the lack of chemical, mechanical, and thermal stability of biological nanopores and enable the detection of analytes that cannot pass through biological macromolecules [5,6].…”