Du-Won Jeong

The single living cell action potential was measured in an intracellular mode by using a vertical nanoelectrode. For intracellular interfacing, Si nanowires were vertically grown in a controlled manner, and optimum conditions, such as diameter, length, and nanowire density, were determined by culturing cells on the nanowires. Vertical nanowire probes were then fabricated with a complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process including sequential deposition of the passivation and electrode layers on the nanowires, and a subsequent partial etching process. The fabricated nanowire probes had an approximately 60-nm diameter and were intracellular. These probes interfaced with a GH3 cell and measured the spontaneous action potential. It successfully measured the action potential, which rapidly reached a steady state with average peak amplitude of approximately 10 mV, duration of approximately 140 ms, and period of 0.9 Hz.

Au-coated vertical silicon nanowire electrode array (VSNEA) was fabricated using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches by chemical vapor deposition and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process for biomolecule sensing. To verify the feasibility for the detection of biomolecules, Au-coated VSNEA was functionalized using peptides having a fluorescent probe. Cyclic voltammograms of the peptide-functionalized Au-coated VSNEA show a steady-state electrochemical current behavior. Because of the critically small dimension and vertically aligned nature of VSNEA, the current density of Au-coated VSNEA was dramatically higher than that of Au film electrodes. Au-coated VSNEA further showed a large current difference with and without peptides that was nine times more than that of Au film electrodes. These results indicate that Au-coated VSENA is highly effective device to detect peptides compared to conventional thin-film electrodes. Au-coated VSNEA can also be used as a divergent biosensor platform in many applications.