Intra/extracellular nanoprobe arrays for electrical and chemical nanoscale measurements of neurons

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We developed out-of-plane, high aspect ratio, nanoscale electrode tipped microwire arrays for applications to penetrating, multisite, nanoscale biological sensors. A nanoscale tipped wire is formed with isotropic silicon etching to the tip of a vapor-liquid-solid grown silicon microwire. After coating the wire with a metal, only the nanotip section can be exposed from the surrounding outer shell(e. g., silicon dioxide and parylene) by three-dimensional integration processes. As a device application, we demonstrate the trapping of polystyrene nanoparticles in a solution using a fabricated gold-nanotip wire array. Moreover, these trapped nanoparticles can be injected into a soft material(gelatin), demonstrating a multi-site wide-area batch depth injection of nanoparticles. Also, we demonstrated multipoint/batch and localized DNA transfers into individual human embryonic kidney cells(HEK293) with plasmid containing yellow fluorescent protein(YFP) gene. Deep area electrical nanoscale measurements for thick samples such as brain slices as well as cortices would also be possible by using the nanotip microwire arrays, promising a powerful device for the future of neuroscience.