Design of reconfigurable nanofluidic ionic diodes by combination of ion-track nanochannels and conducting polymers

GONZALO PÉREZ-MITTA; WALDEMAR A. MARMISOLLÉ; MARÍA EUGENIA TOIMIL-MOLARES; CHRISTINA TRAUTMANN; OMAR AZZARONI

Buenos Aires

Congreso; Frontiers in Physical Sciences Humboldt Kolleg; 2016

ICAS-UnSAM

Nowadays there is a large interest in the scientific community to develop abiotic devicesthat allow a fine control on the transport properties of dissolved species aiming at the construction offunctional ionic circuits. The inspiration of such quest comes from nature as cells are able to controlthe ionic transport between the intra and extracellular media with high precision. In a similar vein,asymmetrically-shaped nanochannels allow controlling selectively the passage of ions through themdue to the nanoconfinement of the solution, which makes the conductance of the channelsdependent on its surface charge distribution. In this sense, the precise management of themagnitude of this surface charge would allow achieving a greater control of the ionic transport. Here,we present the fabrication of a Polyaniline (PANI)-modified conical nanochannel. We show how thepresence of the electrochemically active layer of PANI allows modulating the amount of chargecarriers passing through the channel, thus tuning the transport properties in an analogous manner tothe gate electrode in a field-effect electronic device