Abstract
Nanofluidic devices make use of molecular-level forces and phenomena to increase their density, speed and accuracy1. However, fabrication is challenging, because dissimilar materials need to be integrated in three dimensions with nanoscale precision. Here, we report a three-dimensional nanoscale liquid glass electrode made from monolithic substrates without conductive materials by femtosecond-laser nanomachining. The electrode consists of a nanochannel terminating at a nanoscale glass tip that becomes a conductor in the presence of high electric fields through dielectric breakdown, and returns to being an insulator when this field is removed. This reversibility relies on control of nanoampere breakdown currents and extremely fast heat dissipation at nanoscale volumes. We use the nanoscale liquid glass electrode to fabricate a nano-injector that includes an electrokinetic pump, 4 µm across with 0.6 µm channels, which is capable of producing well-controlled flow rates below 1 fl s−1. The electrode can be integrated easily into other nanodevices and fluidic systems, including actuators and sensors.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to S. Yalisove and Kwan Hyoung Kang for useful discussions. We thank Intralase Corp. for the laser. This work was supported by NIH R21 EB006098.
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S.L. discovered the phenomena and the governing mechanism. S.L. conceived and designed the experiments. S.L. performed all the experiments except the I–V measurements in fused silica substrates, which were carried out by R.A. S.L. performed the numerical simulation and analysed the simulation results. S.L. developed the nano-injector and analysed the performance. S.L. and A.J.H. developed the breakdown model, discussed the results, and co-wrote the paper. A.J.H. guided the overall thrust and direction of this research.
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Lee, S., An, R. & Hunt, A. Liquid glass electrodes for nanofluidics. Nature Nanotech 5, 412–416 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.81
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.81
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