Integration of Solid-State Nanopores in Microfluidic Networks via Transfer Printing of Suspended Membranes

• Main Authors: Jain, Tarun (Contributor), Guerrero, Ricardo Jose S. (Contributor), Aguilar, Carlos A. (Contributor), Karnik, Rohit (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Lincoln Laboratory (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society (ACS), 2015-06-26T13:55:34Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 Solid-state nanopores have emerged as versatile single-molecule sensors for applications including DNA sequencing, protein unfolding, micro-RNA detection, label-free detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms, and mapping of DNA-binding proteins involved in homologous recombination. While machining nanopores in dielectric membranes provides nanometer-scale precision, the rigid silicon support for the membrane contributes capacitive noise and limits integration with microfluidic networks for sample preprocessing. Herein, we demonstrate a technique to directly transfer solid-state nanopores machined in dielectric membranes from a silicon support into a microfluidic network. The resulting microfluidic-addressable nanopores can sense single DNA molecules at high bandwidths and with low noise, owing to significant reductions in membrane capacitance. This strategy will enable large-scale integration of solid-state nanopores with microfluidic upstream and downstream processing and permit new functions with nanopores such as complex manipulations for multidimensional analysis and parallel sensing in two and three-dimensional architectures.