关键词：传感器；流体；纳米技术；生物标志物；纳米流体力学
摘 要：Mass transport has generally been recognized as a major limiting factor in the sensitivity and performance of miniaturized sensor platforms. To overcome this limitation, a new approach, termed molecular dam, has been developed to enhance mass transport for protein enrichment in nanofluidic channels by nanoscale electrodeless dielectrophoresis under physiological buffer conditions. The researchers demonstrated protein enrichment factor to be greater than 105-fold in 20 seconds, which is orders of magnitude faster than most reported methods. They also studied the detailed mechanism as how the electrokinetic forces get balanced to achieve the molecular damming effect and the scaling relation of force and nanoconstriction size. Both the capillary- and electrokinetically-driven nanoslit sensor platforms have also been developed in parallel to enhance the reaction kinetics of protein sensing by reducing the diffusion length of reactants.