Nanomechanical gas chromatography for metabolite detection and breath analysis

由于卓越的灵敏度和便携性等令人着迷的特性，纳米传感器继续吸引物理、化学和生物分析领域的强烈研究关注。 纳米机械系统就是一个例子：它们令人惊讶的称量单个分子的能力已经确立了其巨大的传感潜力。 气相色谱是一种非常强大的分析技术，更广泛的便携式应用将有利于从环境监测到疾病诊断等广泛的应用。 该计划的主要目标是将纳米机械传感纳入气相色谱法以提供增强的功能。 最终目标是通过廉价的便携式平台对气体分子进行可靠的检测和识别。 基于我们过去的优势，三个相互关联的目标将集中我们的努力来实现这些目标。 1）纳米力学系统的灵敏度将被推向极限。 2) 将开发和利用一种新型气体微通道系统，以最好地利用这种敏感性。 3）通过研究提供附加信息的部署（例如不同传感器涂层的阵列），纳米机械传感器的分析能力将得到扩大。 这些工作将在对真实化合物（例如疾病生物标志物）进行气相色谱分析时将纳米机械传感器与常规传感器进行比较来进行。 该项目创建的平台将对纳米光子学、纳米力学、气相色谱和分析传感领域产生直接影响。 预期的意义包括阐明快速增长的光子学和纳米力学组合领域、开发新的气相色谱技术、通过改进的气体分子识别来提高检测限、生物标志物分析的新方法以及无处不在的化学分析。 本科生和研究生将在纳米制造、光子学、纳米力学、色谱和代谢组学专业知识以及分析和光电仪器的独特多学科环境中接受高水平的培训。

Nanosensors continue to attract intense research attention for physical, chemical, and biological analysis due to intriguing properties like exceptional sensitivity and the promise of portability. Nanomechanical systems are one example: their surprising capability to weigh individual molecules has established their immense sensing potential. Gas chromatography is a very powerful analytical technique where broader portable adoption will benefit a wide swath of applications ranging from environmental monitoring to disease diagnosis. The main objective of this program is to incorporate nanomechanical sensing into gas chromatography to provide enhanced functionality. The ultimate goal is robust detection and identification of gas molecules by inexpensive portable platforms. Building on our past strengths, three interrelated objectives will focus our efforts in working towards these goals. 1) The sensitivity of nanomechanical systems will be pushed towards an ultimate limit. 2) A novel gas microchannel system will be developed and exploited to best take advantage of this sensitivity. 3) The analytical power of nanomechanical sensors will be broadened by studying deployments which provide additional information (such as arrays of different sensor coatings). These efforts will be carried out as the nanomechanical sensors are compared to regular sensors during gas chromatography of real compounds such as disease biomarkers. The platform created in this program will have immediate impacts in the fields of nanophotonics, nanomechanics, gas chromatography, and analytical sensing. The anticipated significance includes elucidation of the rapidly growing combined fields of photonics and nanomechanics, the development of a new gas chromatography technique, better limits of detection with improved gas molecule recognition, new methods for biomarker profiling, and ubiquitous accessible chemical analysis. Undergraduate and graduate students will be trained to a high level in a unique multi-disciplinary environment of nanofabrication, photonics, nanomechanics, chromatography, and metabolomics expertise and analytical and optoelectronic instrumentation.