Argon Gas Flow Through Micro- and Nano-pipettes

Abstract

Glass micropipettes and nanopipettes are widely used for injection to or aspiration from living cells, and nanopipettes can be also used for nano-fabrication by deposition. Here, we show a non-destructive and contamination-free method of examining the inside of glass micropipettes and nanopipettes by argon gas flow through the pipettes from the tip-top to the tube-end. The exit pressure for each pipette was measured at the entrance pressure of 50 kPa, and the semi-log plot of the vacuum conductance versus pipette inner diameter is compared with the calculation using tapered tube approximation assuming molecular flow. The experimental results were consistent in trend with the calculation, and the difference between the experimental results and the calculation was due to the intermediate gas flow as the pipette inner diameter increases. Therefore, the formula of the calculation was transformed using the Gompertz function to fit the experimental results well. By utilizing the plot of the inner diameter dependence of the exit pressure, the inner diameter of glass pipettes can be estimated from our developed gas flow method.