Professor Henry S. White of the University of Utah is supported by the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry to develop methods for fabricating chemically modified glass nanopore electrodes and to investigate their electrical and electrochemical properties. The electrodes will be fabricated by sealing platinum or gold wires in high-resistance glass capillaries, polishing the glass to expose a nanodisk electrode of known radius using electrical feedback circuitry, and etching the metal disk to create a conical shaped pore that is exposed to the analyte solution through a nanometer scale orifice. The objectives of this project are: (1) to optimize the fabrication of electrodes with reproducible 5 nm-radius orifices; (2) to develop alternate-current conductivity methodology to measure the resistance at the pore orifice in response to analyte binding; (3) to design molecular recognition sites and materials for the responsive nanopores; and (4) to evaluate the stimulus-response behavior of the electrodes in specific relevant applications.
The long term objective is to develop a self-contained device that could potentially replace the ion-selective electrode, which is employed ubiquitously in chemical and biomedical analysis. The device combines separation and sensing elements for the analysis of chemicals and biochemicals, with sensitivities that could potentially approach the single-molecule level. The project will provide excellent research and professional training opportunities for students in nanotechnology, surface chemistry, biochemistry, electrical measurements, polymer chemistry and computational chemistry.
