Soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics

Trapping and manipulation of nano-objects in solution are of great interest and have emerged in a plethora of fields spanning from soft condensed matter to biophysics and medical diagnostics. We report on establishing a nanofluidic system for reliable and contact-free trapping as well as manipulatio...

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Autores principales: Gerspach, Michael A., Mojarad, Nassir, Sharma, Deepika, Pfohl, Thomas, Ekinci, Yasin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6444982/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31057877
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/micronano.2017.51
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author Gerspach, Michael A.
Mojarad, Nassir
Sharma, Deepika
Pfohl, Thomas
Ekinci, Yasin
author_facet Gerspach, Michael A.
Mojarad, Nassir
Sharma, Deepika
Pfohl, Thomas
Ekinci, Yasin
author_sort Gerspach, Michael A.
collection PubMed
description Trapping and manipulation of nano-objects in solution are of great interest and have emerged in a plethora of fields spanning from soft condensed matter to biophysics and medical diagnostics. We report on establishing a nanofluidic system for reliable and contact-free trapping as well as manipulation of charged nano-objects using elastic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based materials. This trapping principle is based on electrostatic repulsion between charged nanofluidic walls and confined charged objects, called geometry-induced electrostatic (GIE) trapping. With gold nanoparticles as probes, we study the performance of the devices by measuring the stiffness and potential depths of the implemented traps, and compare the results with numerical simulations. When trapping 100 nm particles, we observe potential depths of up to Q≅24 k(B)T that provide stable trapping for many days. Taking advantage of the soft material properties of PDMS, we actively tune the trapping strength and potential depth by elastically reducing the device channel height, which boosts the potential depth up to Q~200 k(B)T, providing practically permanent contact-free trapping. Due to a high-throughput and low-cost fabrication process, ease of use, and excellent trapping performance, our method provides a reliable platform for research and applications in study and manipulation of single nano-objects in fluids.
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spelling pubmed-64449822019-05-03 Soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics Gerspach, Michael A. Mojarad, Nassir Sharma, Deepika Pfohl, Thomas Ekinci, Yasin Microsyst Nanoeng Article Trapping and manipulation of nano-objects in solution are of great interest and have emerged in a plethora of fields spanning from soft condensed matter to biophysics and medical diagnostics. We report on establishing a nanofluidic system for reliable and contact-free trapping as well as manipulation of charged nano-objects using elastic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based materials. This trapping principle is based on electrostatic repulsion between charged nanofluidic walls and confined charged objects, called geometry-induced electrostatic (GIE) trapping. With gold nanoparticles as probes, we study the performance of the devices by measuring the stiffness and potential depths of the implemented traps, and compare the results with numerical simulations. When trapping 100 nm particles, we observe potential depths of up to Q≅24 k(B)T that provide stable trapping for many days. Taking advantage of the soft material properties of PDMS, we actively tune the trapping strength and potential depth by elastically reducing the device channel height, which boosts the potential depth up to Q~200 k(B)T, providing practically permanent contact-free trapping. Due to a high-throughput and low-cost fabrication process, ease of use, and excellent trapping performance, our method provides a reliable platform for research and applications in study and manipulation of single nano-objects in fluids. Nature Publishing Group 2017-12-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6444982/ /pubmed/31057877 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/micronano.2017.51 Text en Copyright © 2017 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Gerspach, Michael A.
Mojarad, Nassir
Sharma, Deepika
Pfohl, Thomas
Ekinci, Yasin
Soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics
title Soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics
title_full Soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics
title_fullStr Soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics
title_full_unstemmed Soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics
title_short Soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics
title_sort soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6444982/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31057877
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/micronano.2017.51
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