Break junctions provide tip-shaped contact electrodes that are fundamental components of nano and molecular electronics. However, the fabrication of break junctions remains notoriously time-consuming and difficult to parallelize. Here we demonstrate true parallel fabrication of gold break junctions featuring sub-3 nm gaps on the wafer-scale, by relying on a novel self-breaking mechanism based on controlled crack formation in notched bridge structures. We achieve fabrication densities as high as 7 million junctions per cm2, with fabrication yields of around 7% for obtaining crack-defined break junctions with sub-3 nm gaps of fixed gap width that exhibit electron tunneling. We also form molecular junctions using dithiol-terminated oligo(phenylene ethynylene) (OPE3) to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach for electrical probing of molecules down to liquid helium temperatures. Our technology opens a whole new range of experimental opportunities for nano and molecular electronics applications, by enabling very large-scale fabrication of solid-state break junctions.

Achieving near-atomic-scale electronic nanogaps in a reliable and scalable manner will facilitate fundamental advances in molecular detection, plasmonics, and nanoelectronics. Here, a method is shown for realizing crack-defined nanogaps separating TiN electrodes, allowing parallel and scalable fabrication of arrays of sub-10 nm electronic nanogaps featuring individually defined gap widths.

The ability to manufacture a nanogap in between two electrodes has proven a powerful catalyst for scientific discoveries in nanoscience and molecular electronics. A wide range of bottom-up and top-down methodologies are now available to fabricate nanogaps that are less than 10 nm wide. However, most available techniques involve time-consuming serial processes that are not compatible with large-scale manufacturing of nanogap devices. The scalable manufacturing of sub-10 nm gaps remains a great technological challenge that currently hinders both experimental nanoscience and the prospects for commercial exploitation of nanogap devices. Here, available nanogap fabrication methodologies are reviewed and a detailed comparison of their merits is provided, with special focus on large-scale and reproducible manufacturing of nanogaps. The most promising approaches that could achieve a breakthrough in research and commercial applications are identified. Emerging scalable nanogap manufacturing methodologies will ultimately enable applications with high scientific and societal impact, including high-speed whole genome sequencing, electromechanical computing, and molecular electronics using nanogap electrodes.

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Bacterial adhesion on silicone nano-and microstructures is investigated in stagnant and flow experiments. Static adhesion tests are performed in 0.9% NaCl solution. These experiments reveal that the number of Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) adhering to glass surfaces can significantly be reduced if silicone nanofilament and rod coatings are present. Further, flow experiments are conducted in a parallel-plate flow chamber using 0.9% NaCl solution and artificial urine as medium. Silicone nanofilament coated surfaces are compared to uncoated glass surfaces. E. coli colonisation on filament coated surfaces is reduced for at least 24 h in 0.9% NaCl solution, while in artificial urine no reduction is observed after 24 h. S. epidermidis shows converse adhesion behaviour. Here, initial adhesion on nanofilaments is promoted but the number of adherent S. epidermidis seems to decrease after extended contact time. The obtained results demonstrate that superhydrophobic silicone surfaces significantly reduce bacterial colonisation under stagnant and dynamic conditions. However, the bacterial adhesion behaviour depends on the architecture of the silicone nano-and microstructures and the bacterial species investigated.

Nanogap electrodes consist of pairs of electrically conducting tips that exhibit nanoscale gaps. They are building blocks for a variety of applications in quantum electronics, nanophotonics, plasmonics, nanopore sequencing, molecular electronics, and molecular sensing. Crack-junctions (CJs) constitute a new class of nanogap electrodes that are formed by controlled fracture of suspended bridge structures fabricated in an electrically conducting thin film under residual tensile stress. Key advantages of the CJ methodology over alternative technologies are that CJs can be fabricated with wafer-scale processes, and that the width of each individual nanogap can be precisely controlled in a range from o 2 to 4100 nm. While the realization of CJs has been demonstrated in initial experiments, the impact of the different design parameters on the resulting CJs has not yet been studied. Here we investigate the influence of design parameters such as the dimensions and shape of the notches, the length of the electrode-bridge and the design of the anchors, on the formation and propagation of cracks and on the resulting features of the CJs. We verify that the design criteria yields accurate prediction of crack formation in electrode-bridges featuring a beam width of 280 nm and beam lengths ranging from 1 to 1.8 μm. We further present design as well as experimental guidelines for the fabrication of CJs and propose an approach to initiate crack formation after release etching of the suspended electrode-bridge, thereby enabling the realization of CJs with pristine electrode surfaces.

Single nanowires (NWs) have a broad range of applications in nanoelectronics, nanomechanics, and nanophotonics, but, to date, no technique can produce single sub-20 nm wide NWs with electrical connections in a scalable fashion. In this work, we combine conventional optical and crack lithographies to generate single NW devices with controllable and predictable dimensions and placement and with individual electrical contacts to the NWs. We demonstrate NWs made of gold, platinum, palladium, tungsten, tin, and metal oxides. We have used conventional i-line stepper lithography with a nominal resolution of 365 nm to define crack lithography structures in a shadow mask for large-scale manufacturing of sub-20 nm wide NWs, which is a 20-fold improvement over the resolution that is possible with the utilized stepper lithography. Overall, the proposed method represents an effective approach to generate single NW devices with useful applications in electrochemistry, photonics, and gas- and biosensing.

The understanding of the interaction between the membrane of neurons and amyloid-β peptides is of crucial importance to shed light on the mechanism of toxicity in Alzheimer's disease. This paper describes how supercritical angle fluorescence spectroscopy was applied to monitor in real-time the interaction between a supported lipid bilayer (SLB) and the peptide. Different forms of amyloid-β (40 and 42 amino acids composition) were tested, and the interfacial fluorescence was measured to get information about the lipid integrity and mobility. The results show a concentration-dependent damaging process of the lipid bilayer. Prolonged interaction with the peptide up to 48 h lead to an extraction and clustering of lipid molecules from the surface and a potential disruption of the bilayer, correlated with the formation of peptide aggregates. The natural diffusion of the lipid was slightly hindered by the interaction with amyloid-β(1−42) and closely related to the oligomerization of the peptide. The adsorption and desorption of Amyloid-β was also characterized in terms of affinity. Amyloid-β(1−42) exhibited a slightly higher affinity than amyloid-β(1−40). The former was also more prone to aggregate and to adsorb on the bilayer as oligomer.