Abstract
We present the first fabrication of sub-10 nm nanopores in freestanding polymer membranes via a simple, cost-effective, high-throughput but deterministic fabrication method. Nanopores in the range of 10 nm were initially produced via a single-step nanoimprinting process, which was further reduced to sub-10 nm pores via a post-NIL polymer reflow process. The low shrinkage rate of 2.7 nm/min obtained under the conditions used for the reflow process was the key to achieving sub-10 nm pores with a controllable pore size. The fabricated SU-8 nanopore membranes were successfully employed for transient current measurements during the translocation of DNA molecules through the nanopores.
Highlights
Nanopores have been proven to be an important tool to detect and analyze single biomolecules[1] and their transport phenomena through confined geometries[2]
The double resist layer consisted of a 100 nm thick sacrificial layer of lift-off resist (LOR) (MicroChem, USA) that was spin-coated on the Si substrate and a 5.5 μm thick SU-8 membrane layer (MicroChem, USA) that was spin-coated over the LOR sacrificial layer
The results indicate that was the Si microneedle mold faithfully replicated to the membrane SU-8 layer with good replication fidelity and, under this imprinting condition, no additional window-opening process was required to achieve perforation through the SU-8
Summary
Nanopores have been proven to be an important tool to detect and analyze single biomolecules[1] and their transport phenomena through confined geometries[2]. Most of the sub-10 nm solid-state nanopores used for DNA analysis have been produced in inorganic substrates, such as silicon dioxide[4,5,6,7], silicon nitride[8,9,10,11,12], and glass capillaries[13,14,15,16], via high-energy-beam nanofabrication tools such as focused ion beam[8,9,11,12], focused electron microscopy[4,5,6,7,10,12,17,18,19], and a laser-assisted puller[13,14,15,16]. Nanopores as small as 2 nm in size with sub-nm precision have been achieved via the electric breakdown of an insulating Si3N4 membrane by an applied voltage[28] Even though this method does not require a high-end nanofabrication
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