Integrating Sub‐3 nm Plasmonic Gaps into Solid‐State Nanopores

Shi, Xin; Verschueren, Daniel; Pud, Sergii; Dekker, Cees

doi:10.1002/smll.201703307

Cited by 38 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Sequencing approaches based on tunneling require positioning a pore between two electrodes . Plasmonic devices with interfaced pores require positioning pores at the optimal distance (10–20 nm) from nanoantennas in order to maximize plasmonic coupling . In devices utilizing nanofluidic confinement (e.g., nanochannels, nanocavities) pores need to be aligned with etched sub 100 nm features .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[4,5] Plasmonic devices with interfaced pores require positioning pores at the optimal distance (10-20 nm) from nanoantennas in order to maximize plasmonic coupling. [6][7][8][9][10] In devices utilizing nanofluidic confinement (e.g., nanochannels, nanocavities) pores need to be aligned with etched sub 100 nm features. [11][12][13]45,46] In addition to producing pores, our AFM based approach can exploit multiple scanning modalities (topographic, chemical, electrostatic) to map the device prior to pore production and so align pores precisely to existing features.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanopore Formation via Tip‐Controlled Local Breakdown Using an Atomic Force Microscope

et al. 2019

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The dielectric breakdown approach for forming nanopores has greatly accelerated the pace of research in solid‐state nanopore sensing, enabling inexpensive formation of nanopores via a bench top setup. Here the potential of tip‐controlled local breakdown (TCLB) to fabricate pores 100× faster, with high scalability and nanometer positioning precision using an atomic force microscope (AFM) is demonstrated. A conductive AFM tip is brought into contact with a silicon nitride membrane positioned above an electrolyte reservoir. Application of a voltage pulse at the tip leads to the formation of a single nanoscale pore. Pores are formed precisely at the tip position with a complete suppression of multiple pore formation. In addition, the approach greatly accelerates the electric breakdown process, leading to an average pore fabrication time on the order of 10 ms, at least two orders of magnitude shorter than achieved by classic dielectric breakdown approaches. With this fast pore writing speed over 300 pores can be fabricated in half an hour on the same membrane.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nanopore Formation via Tip‐Controlled Local Breakdown Using an Atomic Force Microscope

et al. 2019

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“…In the past decades, a considerable amount of attention has been paid to produce extremely concentrated and strong electric fields on plasmonic nanostructures . This largely owes to their superior ability in nonlinear optics, optical trapping, single‐molecule analysis, surface plasmon (SP) enhanced spectroscopy . To achieve the extremely concentrated and strong electric fields, lots of efforts are contributed to fabricate kinds of plasmonic structures, revealing that sub‐10 nm nanogap and nanotip are the two key characteristics .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated “Hot Spots”: Tunable Sub‐10 nm Crescent Nanogap Arrays

Zhang

Wang

et al. 2019

Advanced Optical Materials

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trapping, [5] single-molecule analysis, [6,7] surface plasmon (SP) enhanced spectroscopy. [6,8,9] To achieve the extremely concentrated and strong electric fields, lots of efforts are contributed to fabricate kinds of plasmonic structures, revealing that sub-10 nm nanogap and nanotip are the two key characteristics. [10,11] In theory, as predicted by Maxwell's equations, the electric fields would become stronger with the decreasing distance between metal nanostructures and can be confined in the gaps; [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] for nanotips, more electrons are distributed at the structural features with high curvature and thus lead to stronger electric fields. [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] Various plasmonic nanostructures with either nanogaps or nanotips have been fabricated, successfully enhancing the electric fields to several orders of magnitude and confining them in extremely small areas. To obtain better performances, a natural thought is to include both nanogaps and nanotips in one plasmonic nanostructure, i.e., integrated "hot spots." Impressive efforts have been made to develop the multifeature nanostructures. For example, spilt-wedge antenna structures with sub-5 nm gaps, [10] 3D sub-10 nm nanostar dimers gap, [6] and 3D sub-10 nm Ag/SiN x gap with an pair of uniform tips, [31] have been fabricated and highly boosted the local optical field intensity. The fabrication of most these structures has primarily relied on electron beam lithography (EBL) [6,[32][33][34] and focused-ion beam (FIB). [35] These techniques can facilely control the patterns and precisely tune the size and separation, but they suffer from the drawbacks of high-cost, time-consuming, and low-throughput. It is urgently needed to develop a simple and scalable process for their production.Nanoskiving, that combines the deposition of thin metal layers on substrates (flat or structured) and sectioning using a unity of ultramicrotome and diamond knife, would be an alternative fabrication technique for plasmonic nanostructures with both nanogaps and nanotips. [36][37][38][39] Compared with the conventional fabrication techniques (EBL and FIB), nanoskiving is uncomplicated, fast, and scalable, requiring no sophisticated equipment. Nanoskiving has been widely used in fabricating numerous nanostructures, showing the strong capability for nanostructures on-demand. In particular, our research group has reported 3D zig-zag nanowires that possess both nanogaps and nanotips via combining photolithography Plasmonic crescent nanogap arrays (CNGAs) integrated by nanoscale gaps and nanotips exhibit strong capability of light confinement and thus lead to extremely electric field enhancement. The CNGAs with tunable gap-width are fabricated via a low-cost and simple process combining colloidal lithography and nanoskiving techniques. Incident light is captured in the nanogaps and at the two tips of nanocrescent, where extremely strong electric fields are excited. The strong electric fields lead to greatly enhanced surface-enhanced Raman s...

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“…Despite their importance, fabrication of sub‐5 nm NGEs remains a great technological challenge . Existing NGE‐manufacturing methods can be typically classified into two strategies: physical methods based on planar nanofabrication techniques and chemical methods based on noble metal nanoparticles. Most chemical methods are suitable for creating sub‐1 nm NGEs but limited to a relatively narrow range of applications owing to the contamination induced by linker molecules, the shell‐filled gaps, and/or the restrictions derived from metal nanoparticle size.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most chemical methods are suitable for creating sub‐1 nm NGEs but limited to a relatively narrow range of applications owing to the contamination induced by linker molecules, the shell‐filled gaps, and/or the restrictions derived from metal nanoparticle size. Physical methods, including direct patterning techniques, breaking‐/cracking‐based methods, and controllable deposition, are fundamentally limited by the basic planar nanofabrication techniques. Particularly, direct patterning techniques variously suffer from high equipment costs, low throughput, and poor scalability to large sizes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct Deposited Angstrom‐Scale Nanogap Electrodes with Macroscopically Measurable and Material‐Independent Capabilities for Various Applications

Li¹,

Wang²,

Zhang³

et al. 2019

Adv Materials Technologies

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effects, quantum interference, nuclear spins, and electron tunneling, which can unlock the full potential of applications with high scientific and societal impact, including molecular electronics, [4][5][6][7][8][9] quantum tunneling, [10,11] plasmonic nano-optics, [12][13][14][15][16][17] and highly sensitive sequencing. [18][19][20] Despite their importance, fabrication of sub-5 nm NGEs remains a great technological challenge. [1] Existing NGEmanufacturing methods can be typically classified into two strategies: physical methods based on planar nanofabrication techniques and chemical methods based on noble metal nanoparticles. Most chemical methods are suitable for creating sub-1 nm NGEs [11][12][13][14][15] but limited to a relatively narrow range of applications owing to the contamination induced by linker molecules, the shell-filled gaps, and/or the restrictions derived from metal nanoparticle size. Physical methods, including direct patterning techniques, [21][22][23] breaking-/cracking-based methods, [6][7][8][9][10][16][17][18][19][20][24][25][26][27][28] and controllable deposition, [29][30][31] are fundamentally limited by the basic planar nanofabrication techniques. Particularly, direct patterning techniques variously suffer from high equipment costs, low throughput, and poor scalability to large sizes. The breaking-/cracking-based methods are the most widely used but typically involve direct patterning techniques to predefine the wire pattern, a complex apparatus to induce external stimuli, or special materials (e.g., brittle films) to induce internal stress. Though breaking-based methods can be used to produce sub-1 nm NGEs, [6][7][8][9][10][16][17][18][19][20] the intrinsic obstacles mentioned above result in discrete and material-limited NGEs with the fractal facing electrode surface blocking the realization of large-scale complex systems. Controllable deposition [29][30][31] is relatively simple for large-scale fabrication, while the formed NGEs typically face limitations derived from large gap width, problematic rough surfaces, the solution environment, or/and contaminations from the shadow-mask fabrication process. However, simply continuing to improve existing NGE-fabricating methods is insufficient since each method has its own serious inherent defects. An innovative approach is urgently needed to address these issues and to promote the developments of NGEs-based applications.Here, we demonstrate macroscopically measurable and material-independent NGEs with angstrom-scale separations Nanogap electrodes (NGEs) with decreasing separations have received growing attention due to their potential in stimulating extensive applications with high scientific impact, including molecular electronics, quantum tunneling, plasmonic optics, and highly sensitive sequencing. Although various NGE-manufacturing methods have been developed and offer promising results, angstrom-scale NGEs have not been achieved without requiring sophisticated equipment, restricting materials or substrates, compromising mass-fabric...

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Integrating Sub‐3 nm Plasmonic Gaps into Solid‐State Nanopores

Cited by 38 publications

References 33 publications

Nanopore Formation via Tip‐Controlled Local Breakdown Using an Atomic Force Microscope

Nanopore Formation via Tip‐Controlled Local Breakdown Using an Atomic Force Microscope

Integrated “Hot Spots”: Tunable Sub‐10 nm Crescent Nanogap Arrays

Direct Deposited Angstrom‐Scale Nanogap Electrodes with Macroscopically Measurable and Material‐Independent Capabilities for Various Applications

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