Nanofluidic Diodes with Dynamic Rectification Properties Stemming from Reversible Electrochemical Conversions in Conducting Polymers

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

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Lugar: Washington; Año: 2015 vol. 137 p. 15382 - 15385

0002-7863

The use of solid state nanochannels as nanofluidic diodes is currently a topic of large interest in nanotechnology. Particularly, there is a focus in the development of nanochannels with surface functionalities that make them responsive to multiple environmental variables. Here, we present for the first time the construction of electrochemical potential- and pH-responsive nanofluidic diodes using a novel approach based on a controlled electrochemical polymerization of aniline on gold-coated polycarbonate asymmetric nanochannels. The polyaniline-modified na-nochannels showed three different levels of reversible ionic rectification corresponding to the degrees of oxidation of the conducting polymer. Our results demonstrate that this strategy enables an accurate and reversible control of the rectification properties due to the well-defined and predictable electrochemical conversion of charged species generated on the pore walls. We envision that these results will create novel avenues to fabricate electrochemically modulated nanofluidic diodes using conducting polymers integrated into single conical nanopores.