The objective of this SGER proposal is to establish a quantitative relationship between porous silicon pore size and biomolecule size to enable reliable infiltration, binding and detection of target biological material using a label-free porous silicon sensing platform.
Intellectual Merit: The intellectual merit of the proposed research resides in the understanding of the size relationship between biomolecules under test and the pore diameter of a porous host sensing material. The high risk challenge for porous silicon sensing is to effectively determine if the 20 nm pore size is sufficiently large to detect medically significant biomolecules. In this project the PI will carry out three specific experiments to determine the maximum biomolecule size for detection in pores with a 20 nm average diameter. (1) DNA oligos of different length (i.e., different number of base pair) will be exposed to a single layer of porous silicon. (2) Ellipsometry measurements on planar silicon wafers will be used to determine the size of the molecules used to functionalize the porous silicon.. (3) Complementary and non-complementary DNA strands will be exposed to the porous silicon.
Broader impacts. The PI plans to develop outreach activities that will target underrepresented minorities through, for example, presentations to TWISTER (Tennessee Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Research) high school girls. The PI will also recruit undergraduate researchers, including those at nearby Fisk University (HBCU), to be involved in the proposed research.
