Nanofluidics for chemical and biological dynamics in solution at the single molecular level

Abstract

Studying dynamics at the single-molecule level enables deeper and more detailed insights into the behaviors, functions, mechanisms, and heterogeneity of chemical or biological processes, thereby evolving chemistry, biology, and their applications. While most chemical and biological events occur in solution, our understanding of the dynamics in solution at the single-molecule level remains challenging, because of the lack of tools with high spatiotemporal resolution that would facilitate real-time detection, observation, and tracking of high-speed dynamics of the events of small single molecules in solution. Nanofluidic devices can not only provide highly spatially resolved nanoconfinement spaces with the same length scales as those of single molecules but can also be easily coupled to a variety of highly temporally resolved analytical methodologies. Hence, the integration of nanofluidic devices and analytical methodologies is a potential strategy to overcome the challenge of obtaining chemical and biological dynamics in solution at the single-molecule level. In this review, we summarize recent progress in the chemical and biological dynamics studies using nanofluidic devices, address some nanofluidic technologies for chemical and biological dynamics in solution at the single-molecule level, and provide future perspectives in this field towards resolving the critical challenges.