Scalable Nanomanufacturing of Nanowire-Base Sensing Systems from Integrating Flow-Guided Assembly and Synthesis

纳米线由金属、半导体或导电聚合物制成，在下一代传感器和其他电子系统中表现出很好的潜力。与平面结相比，纳米级结可以有效地调节载流子的积累或消耗，并显著提高单分子水平的灵敏度。然而，基于纳米线的传感系统的大规模制造受到以下因素的阻碍：(1)缺乏一种低成本、可靠和高效的方法将纳米线引导到所需的位置；(2)纳米线随机堆积或聚集造成的测量噪声大。该项目旨在开发一种新的可扩展纳米制造工艺，用于生产排列良好和有图案的纳米线电子系统。DNA组装将首先被引导到所需的位置，以创建定义良好的纳米结构。它们的负极复制品，纳米通道，将作为牺牲模板，通过化学或电化学沉积产生高度有序的纳米线。通过这种方法，可以在很大程度上消除大多数模板合成方法中存在的单个纳米线隔离和对准的困难。避免了生物模板合成中常见的结构缺陷。在这个项目中，金属和导电聚合物纳米线场发射晶体管（nanofet）和纳米结热电堆（nanootps）将被制造和测试用于DNA和蛋白质检测。利用这种新方法，可以可靠、高效、高通量地完成纳米线晶格的合成、排列和图像化。它的成功可能会彻底改变当前基于纳米线的传感系统制造。所生产的传感器可广泛应用于临床诊断、环境监测、安全筛查和生物战防御等领域。在开展研究活动的同时，该项目还将为工科学生提供跨学科的机会，让他们在材料、生物学和多个工程学科方面获得实践研究经验。有关的教育材料和资源将通过全球化的教育工具和管道以成本效益高的方式传播，使各级学生，特别是来自弱势群体的学生受益。预计这些努力将有助于加强美国科学和工程劳动力的数量、质量和多样性。

Nanowires, made of metal, semiconductor, or conductive polymer, exhibit promising potentials in the next generation sensors and other electronic systems. Compared to their planar counterparts, nanoscale junctions can efficiently regulate the accumulation or depletion of charge carriers and significantly increase the sensitivity up to single molecule level. However, large scale manufacturing of nanowire-based sensing systems is impeded by: (1) the lack of a low-cost, reliable, and efficient way to direct nanowires to desired locations; (2) the large measuring noise resulting from the random stacking or aggregates of nanowires. This project is to develop a new scalable nanomanufacturing process in the production of well aligned and patterned nanowire electronic systems. DNA assemblies will first be guided to desired locations to create well-defined nanoarchitecture. Their negative replica, nanochannels, will then serve as the sacrificial templates to produce highly ordered nanowires through chemical or electrochemical deposition. In this way, the difficulties for individual nanowire isolation and alignment existing in most template synthesis approaches could be largely eliminated. The structural defects commonly seen in biological template synthesis are also avoided. In this project, metallic and conductive polymer nanowire field emission transistors (nanoFETs) and nanojunction thermopiles (nanoTPs) will be fabricated and tested for DNA and protein detection.With this new approach, the synthesis, alignment, and patterning of nanowire lattice can be done in a reliable and efficient manner and with high throughput. Its success may revolutionize current nanowire-based sensing system manufacturing. The produced sensors can be broadly used in clinical diagnosis, environmental monitoring, security screening, and biowarfare defense. Accompanied by its research activities, this project will also offer interdisciplinary opportunities for engineering students to gain hands-on research experiences in materials, biology, and multiple engineering disciplines. Relevant education materials and resources will be cost-effectively disseminated by globalized educational tools and pipelines to benefit all-level students, particularly those from disadvantaged groups. These efforts are expected to help strengthen the quantity, quality and diversity of the US science and engineering workforce.