AVS 50th International Symposium
    Nanometer Structures Friday Sessions
       Session NS+BI-FrM

Paper NS+BI-FrM8
Nanopores in Ultrathin MOS-compatible Membranes for Electrical Detection of DNA

Friday, November 7, 2003, 10:40 am, Room 317

Session: Nanotechnology and Biology
Presenter: T. Kim, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Authors: T. Kim, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
J. Heng, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
V. Dimitrov, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
C. Ho, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
A. Kornblit, New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium
F. Klemens, New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium
J. Miner, New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium
W. Mansfield, New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium
C. Pai, New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium
T. Sorsch, New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium
G. Timp, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Correspondent: Click to Email
We are developing a revolutionary type of silicon integrated circuit that incorporates MOS technology with an on-chip nano-pore mechanism for directly sensing the electrical activity of bio-molecules such as ions, proteins or DNA. The electronic detection of biological analytes could have several advantages over the conventional scheme, fluorescent microscopy, which is used so prevalently in biology to discriminate the experimental outcomes. For example, if each analyte has a characteristic signature, then an electronic biosensor could facilitate the analysis of the data by eliminating the need for sensitive dyes, thereby improving the dynamic range for detection. We have recently discovered a method to produce ~1-2nm diameter pores (a size comparable to the secondary structure of a protein) in membranes made from materials such as Si, SiO@sub 2@, and Si@sub 3@N@sub4@ that are compatible with MOS fabrication technology. We have adopted this method to create nano-pores spanning a high quality ~2-5nm thick SiO@sub 2@ membrane that constitutes part of the gate electrode in a Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) amplifier. Here, Hwe report on the fabrication of nanometer-scale pores in MOS compatible materials using a high voltage, tightly focused electron beam, and on time-resolved measurements of the transport of 100bp to 1500bp DNA through a range of pore diameters (2-8nm) and membrane thicknesses (2-30nm).