Kwong-Li probes: novel nano-probes for biological dissection and injection

Abstract

We recent& discovered a very fast and reliable single-step etching process to fabricate tiny-angled (<2.73 jiber probe tips, which is less complex and yield finer tips than other available multiple-step sharp-tip (e.g., SNOM tips) fabrication processes. The process ik named as Kwong-Li's (KL) Method As the probe profie depends high& on the interfacial meniscus of the etchant, by means of our sacrijcial boundary etching technique, in which we introduced glass tubings as etching barriers, probes with very sharp tips and long tapers were formed Usingp-xylene as organic solvent and hydrofruoric acid as etchant, we succeeded in shaping optical fibers (with initialfiber diameter of 125pm) into sharp tips with angles ranging js-om <2.7 -9.7; with nanoscale tip diameter of <1,um. By adjusting the initial etchant height in the tubing, final tip angles can be controlled With their nanometric tips, these sharp probes will be usefil for various scanning probe microscopy applications and could potential& be used as surgical took for micro cellular sqge?y, i.e., we have already shown that KL probes will penetrate through cell membranes with less mechanical resistance than conventional pipettes and probes made by Tumer's Method. The fabrication process of KL probes and experimental resultsfiom using KL probes toprobe cells are presented in this paper.

Novel micro gripping, probing, and sensing devices for single-cell surgery

“…In this section, we present a novel probe fabrication process developed in our laboratory, which we will refer to as the KL Method [8], due to the lack of a better name. The fabrication process combines a sacrificial boundary etching technique with a well known and simple chemical probe etching process (Turner's Method [9]).…”