Construction and applications of hybrid nanochannels with helical foldamers and solid-state nanopores

Abstract

Nanopore platform has been explored for wide applications in various domain. However, the intrinsic properties of the pore-carrier materials limit the scaled practical usage. Some hybrid systems combined the advantages of each material have been promoted, most of which are based on the fragile lipid bilayer-supported transmembrane proteins or DNA origami on the solid-state channel. We herein provide a lipid-free construction of hybrid nanochannel equipped with helical molecule embedding in SiNx nanopore. The mechanical robustness and the physiochemical stability of SiNx and designable biocompatible helix supply a superior integrated device for stable durable sensing with good reliability. The hybrid nanochannels display a good conduction in distinct ionic solutions with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic multiplex helix. The identification of different amino acids as well as the enantiomers reveal the potential capability of the hybrid nanochannel in the peptide and protein sensing at single amino acid level. Our work paves a way on the solid-state nanopore sequencing with sub-nanometer-sized organic/inorganic hybrid ionic channel.