Electrostatic gating of ionic fluxes at conical glass nanopores

该项目研究锥形玻璃纳米孔处的离子通量(主要是K+和Cl-)。这样的纳米孔可以在标准实验室中容易地和可重复地制造出来。它们表现出离子电流整流(ICR)的有趣特征，这意味着它们的稳态电流电压曲线偏离直线。ICR的初步结果似乎是有一种离子物质优先通过孔口转移。然而，其潜在的机制还没有完全被理解。我们的目标是促进对ICR的基本理解。我们还提出了一种如何在金属化的纳米孔处实现离子通量的直接静电门的方法。合成纳米孔被广泛用作生物孔的模型系统。离子通量的选择性是生物孔功能的一个关键特征，我们希望我们的结果对生物物理界感兴趣。

This project deals with ionic fluxes (mainly K+ and Cl-) at conical glass nanopores. Such nanopores can be easily and reproducibly manufactured in a standard lab. They show the interesting feature of ion current rectification (ICR) which means that their steady state current voltage curve deviates from a straight line. A preliminary for ICR seems to be that one ionic species translocates preferentially through the orifice. However, the underlying mechanism is not fully understood. Our aim is to contribute to the fundamental understanding of ICR. We also propose an approach how to realize a direct electrostatic gating of the ionic fluxes at metallized nanopores. Synthetic nanopores are widely used as model systems for biological pores. Selectivity of ionic fluxes is a key feature for the functioning of biological pores, and we expect our results to be interesting for the biophysical community.