Electrically activated nanofluidic diodes

Abstract

We propose a high throughput electrically activated reconfigurable nanofluidic diode structure where the application of a gate voltage can regulate the behavior of the nanofluidic diode. The proposed device is easy to fabricate and offers control over the forward and reverse bias of the nanofluidic diode. 10 nm of Cr is sputter deposited on a free standing anodic aluminum oxide membrane with a pore diameter of 40 nm and a thickness of 50 μm. The surface charge density and polarity at the surface of chromium can be manipulated by the gate voltage applied at the Cr side. Our results show that our device acts as a nanofluidic diode and can be used for controllable molecular separation, chemical sensing and biosensing.