TY - JOUR
T1 - Silicon carbide-gated nanofluidic membrane for active control of electrokinetic ionic transport
AU - Silvestri, Antonia
AU - Di Trani, Nicola
AU - Canavese, Giancarlo
AU - Ros, Paolo Motto
AU - Iannucci, Leonardo
AU - Grassini, Sabrina
AU - Wang, Yu
AU - Liu, Xuewu
AU - Demarchi, Danilo
AU - Grattoni, Alessandro
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: Funding support was provided by NIH-NIGMS R01GM127558 (AG) and the Houston Methodist Research Institute (AG).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - Manipulation of ions and molecules by external control at the nanoscale is highly relevant to biomedical applications. We report a biocompatible electrode-embedded nanofluidic channel membrane designed for electrofluidic applications such as ionic field-effect transistors for implantable drug-delivery systems. Our nanofluidic membrane includes a polysilicon electrode electrically isolated by amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC). The nanochannel gating performance was experimentally investigated based on the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics, leakage current, and power consumption in potassium chloride (KCl) electrolyte. We observed significant modulation of ionic diffusive transport of both positively and negatively charged ions under physical confinement of nanochannels, with low power consumption. To study the physical mechanism associated with the gating performance, we performed electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results showed that the flat band voltage and density of states were significantly low. In light of its remarkable performance in terms of ionic modulation and low power consumption, this new biocompatible nanofluidic membrane could lead to a new class of silicon implantable nanofluidic systems for tunable drug delivery and personalized medicine.
AB - Manipulation of ions and molecules by external control at the nanoscale is highly relevant to biomedical applications. We report a biocompatible electrode-embedded nanofluidic channel membrane designed for electrofluidic applications such as ionic field-effect transistors for implantable drug-delivery systems. Our nanofluidic membrane includes a polysilicon electrode electrically isolated by amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC). The nanochannel gating performance was experimentally investigated based on the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics, leakage current, and power consumption in potassium chloride (KCl) electrolyte. We observed significant modulation of ionic diffusive transport of both positively and negatively charged ions under physical confinement of nanochannels, with low power consumption. To study the physical mechanism associated with the gating performance, we performed electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results showed that the flat band voltage and density of states were significantly low. In light of its remarkable performance in terms of ionic modulation and low power consumption, this new biocompatible nanofluidic membrane could lead to a new class of silicon implantable nanofluidic systems for tunable drug delivery and personalized medicine.
KW - Electrical double layer
KW - Ion rectification
KW - Ionic modulation control
KW - Nanofluidic channel
KW - Nanofluidic ion transport
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U2 - 10.3390/membranes11070535
DO - 10.3390/membranes11070535
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85111324059
VL - 11
JO - Membranes
JF - Membranes
SN - 2077-0375
IS - 7
M1 - 535
ER -