Vertically Aligned Diamond Nanowires for DNA Sensing

Abstract

Live wire: Biofunctionalized vertically aligned diamond nanowires as DNA sensors benefit from the outstanding electrochemical properties of diamond as a transducer as well as the advantages of dispersed, controlled binding of linker molecules to achieve behavior of DNA molecules' “like‐in‐solution” situation.

Nanostructuring of diamond films using self-assembled nanoparticles

“…The density of our DNRs is comparable the density achieved by applying the lithographic process [4,10]. It is believed that the realized nano-structures will find future applications in various fields like the realization of sensing material for electronic devices [5,12,13].…”

“…Due to a high mechanical strength and hardness, high thermal conductivity, thermal stability and chemical inertness, wide band gap and other outstanding properties, diamond has got a persistent attention as an excellent candidate for electronic, biological and microelectromechanical systems and sensing applications [1][2][3][4][5]. Several potential applications of diamond films require (nano)structuring where mostly plasma-assisted reactive ion etching (RIE) is used.…”

“…It has been already reported about a successful etching of diamond in RF-activated plasma systems using various chemistries [8,9] and applying different masking materials. Aluminum is often used as masking material, but also another metals, polymers, oxides or nitrides [9] and even nanodiamond powder [5], have been investigated referring to their applicability for diamond structuring. Different gases and/or their mixtures that have been used as source of ions are mostly O 2 Ar, CF 4 , CHF 3 , SF 6 , and to a lesser extent SiCl 4 , Cl 2 .…”

“…Different gases and/or their mixtures that have been used as source of ions are mostly O 2 Ar, CF 4 , CHF 3 , SF 6 , and to a lesser extent SiCl 4 , Cl 2 . In addition, several studies [5][6][7][8][9] present also interesting relations like dependence of the etch rate on the applied power and/or on the gas mixture, the influence of surface morphology and/or crystallogra-phy on the etch rate, etc. Ando et al have showed that a quite high etching ratio with a good result in smoothing of etched surface at high selectivity can be achieved in CF 4 /O 2 based gas mixture [10].…”

“…Instead of carbon nanotubes, which are produced by bottomup methods, the DNRs are typically produced by topdown methods [11]. However, they are also promising as a new type of (bio) sensors [4,5,12,13].…”