Filtering of Nanoparticles with Tunable Semiconductor Membranes

Abstract

Translocation dynamics of nanoparticles permeating through the nanopore in an n-Si semiconductor membrane is studied. With the use of Brownian Dynamics to describe the motion of the charged nanoparticles in the self-consistent membrane-electrolyte electrostatic potential, we asses the possibility of using our voltage controlled membrane for the macroscopic filtering of the charged nanoparticles. The results indicate that the tunable local electric field inside the membrane can effectively control interaction of a nanoparticle with the nanopore by either blocking its passage or increasing the translocation rate. The effect is particularly strong for larger nanoparticles due to their stronger interaction with the membrane while in the nanopore. By extracting the membrane permeability from our microsopic simulations, we compute the macroscopic sieving factors and show that the size selectivity of the membrane can be tuned by the applied voltage.