CaSTL Seminar by Ramazan Kizil

Electric field assisted precise positioning of Au and Ag segmented nanowires from dispersion onto a patterned chip surface has shown to be a facile, reliable and economical approach to create nanometer separated electrodes. The talk covers steps of fabrication of nanogap electrodes from the electrofluidically aligned nanowires and the performance of these devices in electrical measurement of different  molecular biorecognition. The main theme of the talk will be on creation of on-chip integrated nanowire device with controllable nanogap. The nanogap can be used to manipulate and capture nanoparticles and biomaterials. This device integrates from nanoprobes to microprobes, and conveniently allows for on-chip manipulation, capturing, and electrical characterization of nanoparticles (NPs). The strength of AC field is big a concern in retention of biological activity of biorecognition elements captured on nanowire surface.  It was shown for biotin molecules that bioactivity was retained during electrofluidic alignment under AC bias up to 40 Volts. This suggest that dielectrophoresis can also be applied to surface functionalized nanostructures without disrupting the surface covered molecules. The potential of our nanogap platform in biosensing will be shown on electrical characterization of single and double stranded DNA molecules. Finally, nanomanipulation of nanowires on  gold pads and nanoprobing of molecular junctions in the SEM chamber will be shown as the ongoing study at UCI.