Suppression of a Brownian noise in a hole-type sensor due to induced-charge electro-osmosis

Abstract

Noise reduction is essential for a single molecular sensor. Thus, we propose a novel noise reduction mechanism using a hydrodynamic force due to induced-charge electro-osmosis (ICEO) in a hole-type sensor and numerically examine the performance. By the boundary element method that considers both a Brownian motion and an ICEO flow of a polarizable particle, we find that the Brownian noise in a current signal is suppressed significantly in a converging channel because of the ICEO flow around the particle in the presence of an electric field. Further, we propose a simple model that explains a numerically obtained threshold voltage of the suppression of the Brownian noise due to ICEO. We believe that our findings contribute greatly to developments of a single molecular sensor.