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MEMS Membranes with Nanoscale Holes for Analytical Applications
Micro-electro-mechanical membranes having nanoscale holes were developed, to be used as a nanofluidic sample inlet in novel analytical applications. Nanoscopic holes can be used as sampling points to enable a molecular flow regime, enhancing the performance and simplifying the layout of mass spectro...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7909423/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33498406 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/membranes11020074 |
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author | Bagolini, Alvise Correale, Raffaele Picciotto, Antonino Di Lorenzo, Maurizio Scapinello, Marco |
author_facet | Bagolini, Alvise Correale, Raffaele Picciotto, Antonino Di Lorenzo, Maurizio Scapinello, Marco |
author_sort | Bagolini, Alvise |
collection | PubMed |
description | Micro-electro-mechanical membranes having nanoscale holes were developed, to be used as a nanofluidic sample inlet in novel analytical applications. Nanoscopic holes can be used as sampling points to enable a molecular flow regime, enhancing the performance and simplifying the layout of mass spectrometers and other analytical systems. To do this, the holes must be placed on membranes capable of consistently withstanding a pressure gradient of 1 bar. To achieve this goal, a membrane-in-membrane structure was adopted, where a larger and thicker membrane is microfabricated, and smaller sub-membranes are then realized in it. The nanoscopic holes are opened in the sub-membranes. Prototype devices were fabricated, having hole diameters from 300 to 600 nm, a membrane side of 80 μm, and a simulated maximum displacement of less than 150 nm under a 1 bar pressure gradient. The obtained prototypes were tested in a dedicated vacuum system, and a method to calculate the effective orifice diameter using gas flow measurements at different pressure gradients was implemented. The calculated diameters were in good agreement with the target diameter sizes. Micro-electro-mechanical technology was successfully used to develop a novel micromembrane with nanoscopic holes, and the fabricated prototypes were successfully used as a gas inlet in a vacuum system for mass spectrometry and other analytical systems. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7909423 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-79094232021-02-27 MEMS Membranes with Nanoscale Holes for Analytical Applications Bagolini, Alvise Correale, Raffaele Picciotto, Antonino Di Lorenzo, Maurizio Scapinello, Marco Membranes (Basel) Article Micro-electro-mechanical membranes having nanoscale holes were developed, to be used as a nanofluidic sample inlet in novel analytical applications. Nanoscopic holes can be used as sampling points to enable a molecular flow regime, enhancing the performance and simplifying the layout of mass spectrometers and other analytical systems. To do this, the holes must be placed on membranes capable of consistently withstanding a pressure gradient of 1 bar. To achieve this goal, a membrane-in-membrane structure was adopted, where a larger and thicker membrane is microfabricated, and smaller sub-membranes are then realized in it. The nanoscopic holes are opened in the sub-membranes. Prototype devices were fabricated, having hole diameters from 300 to 600 nm, a membrane side of 80 μm, and a simulated maximum displacement of less than 150 nm under a 1 bar pressure gradient. The obtained prototypes were tested in a dedicated vacuum system, and a method to calculate the effective orifice diameter using gas flow measurements at different pressure gradients was implemented. The calculated diameters were in good agreement with the target diameter sizes. Micro-electro-mechanical technology was successfully used to develop a novel micromembrane with nanoscopic holes, and the fabricated prototypes were successfully used as a gas inlet in a vacuum system for mass spectrometry and other analytical systems. MDPI 2021-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7909423/ /pubmed/33498406 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/membranes11020074 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Bagolini, Alvise Correale, Raffaele Picciotto, Antonino Di Lorenzo, Maurizio Scapinello, Marco MEMS Membranes with Nanoscale Holes for Analytical Applications |
title | MEMS Membranes with Nanoscale Holes for Analytical Applications |
title_full | MEMS Membranes with Nanoscale Holes for Analytical Applications |
title_fullStr | MEMS Membranes with Nanoscale Holes for Analytical Applications |
title_full_unstemmed | MEMS Membranes with Nanoscale Holes for Analytical Applications |
title_short | MEMS Membranes with Nanoscale Holes for Analytical Applications |
title_sort | mems membranes with nanoscale holes for analytical applications |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7909423/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33498406 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/membranes11020074 |
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