Hao Zhendong, Zhou Ting, Xiao Tianliang, Gong Hui, Zhang Qianqian, Wang Hao, Zhai Jin
Key Laboratory for New Functional Materials of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Materials and Manufacturing, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, P. R. China.
Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P. R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 Dec 23;12(51):57314-57321. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c16409. Epub 2020 Dec 10.
Nanochannel system provides a promising platform to create nanofluidic components in large-scale integrated circuits for "lab-on-a-chip" applications. However, it is a big challenge to achieve monitoring on microscopic nanofluidic manipulation of single nanofluidic components in the integrated ionic circuit. Herein, we present a simple approach to realize visual nanofluidic manipulation in asymmetric nanochannels by the functionalization of an electrochromic polyaniline coating, which demonstrates redox-tunable surface charge accompanied by a visible color variation. The electrochromic nanochannels present a green color when behaving as ionic diodes, while the color turns to light yellow in a manner of ionic resistor. Moreover, both ionic transport behavior and color transition could respond well with alternating switch between redox states, contributing to a reversible and stable visual nanofluidic manipulation of electrochromic nanochannels. This work will create new avenues on characterizing nanofluidic manipulation of nanofluidic components in integrated ionic circuits for intelligent sensing and detection applications.
纳米通道系统为在大规模集成电路中创建用于“芯片实验室”应用的纳米流体组件提供了一个很有前景的平台。然而，在集成离子电路中对单个纳米流体组件的微观纳米流体操作进行监测是一项巨大的挑战。在此，我们提出了一种简单的方法，通过对电致变色聚苯胺涂层进行功能化，在不对称纳米通道中实现可视化纳米流体操作，该涂层表现出氧化还原可调表面电荷并伴有可见颜色变化。当电致变色纳米通道表现为离子二极管时呈现绿色，而当表现为离子电阻时颜色变为浅黄色。此外，离子传输行为和颜色转变都能随着氧化还原状态之间的交替切换而良好响应，有助于实现电致变色纳米通道可逆且稳定的可视化纳米流体操作。这项工作将为在集成离子电路中表征纳米流体组件的纳米流体操作以用于智能传感和检测应用开辟新途径。
