Solid-State Nanopore Sensors: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to include a collection of recent developments in solid-state nanopore technique sensing biomolecules. Inspired and motivated by making synthetic ion channels like protein channels in cell membranes, solid-state nanopores of adjustable sizes and geometries have been fabricated since 2000 in insulating membranes such as silicon nitride and silicon dioxide. Solid-state nanopore-based sensing devices have been developed and used for analyzing single molecules of DNA, RNA, proteins of native and unfolded states, protein–protein interactions, protein–DNA complexes, and the interactions of these molecules with other analytes. The advantages of the solid-state nanopore technique include the following: (1) the measurement of biomolecules can be performed under solution conditions very close to the native state, while varying temperature, pH, and salt concentration at the single molecule level; (2) the nanopore technique is fast, ~10 minutes to measure about 5000 molecules with a small sample (~10 mL of 100 nM or ~10 pM); (3) the nanopores can be fabricated with the size and geometry required for the biomolecules to be detected. To be able to characterize the properties such as their electrical charge, shape, volume, dipole moment, and Brownian motion under these solution conditions, one molecule at a time at high speed will be important and valuable, which can improve our understanding of how these molecules function and interact, advance the development of nanobiotechnology, and allow new approaches to solve problems in biological and medical sciences.

Dr. Jiali Li
Guest Editor

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• nanopore sensors
• DNA and RNA nanopore analysis
• protein nanopore analysis