4 research outputs found
BioNEMS: Nanomechanical systems for single-molecule biophysics
Techniques from nanoscience now enable the creation of ultrasmall electronic
devices. Among these, nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) in particular
offer unprecedented opportunities for sensitive chemical, biological, and physical
measurements [1]. For vacuum-based applications NEMS provide extremely high
force and mass sensitivity, ultimately below the attonewton and single-Dalton level
respectively. In fluidic media, even though the high quality factors attainable in
vacuum become precipitously damped due to fluid coupling, extremely small device
size and high compliance still yield force sensitivity at the piconewton level -
i.e., smaller than that, on average, required to break individual hydrogen bonds that
are the fundamental structural elements underlying molecular recognition processes.
A profound and unique new feature of nanoscale fluid-based mechanical sensors is
that they offer the advantage of unprecedented signal bandwidth (»1 MHz), even
at piconewton force levels. Their combined sensitivity and temporal resolution is
destined to enable real-time observations of stochastic single-molecular biochemical
processes down to the sub-microsecond regime [2]