Pore-based structures occur widely in living organisms. Ion channels embedded in cell membranes, for example, provide pathways, where electron and proton transfer are coupled to the exchange of vital molecules. Learning from mother nature, a recent surge in activity has focused on artificial nanopore architectures to effect electrochemical transformations not accessible in larger structures. He...

The influence of nanopore shapes on the electronic thermal conductivity (ETC) was studied in this paper. It turns out that with same porosity, the ETC will be quite different for different nanopore shapes, caused by the different channel width for different nanopore shapes. With same channel width, the influence of different nanopore shapes can be approximately omitted if the nanopore is small ...

A detailed understanding of the origin of the electrophoretic force on DNA molecules in a solid-state nanopore is important for the development of nanopore-based sequencing technologies. Because of the discrepancies between recent attempts to predict this force and both direct and indirect experimental measurements, this topic has been the focus of much recent discussion. We show that the force...

Nanopore sequencing was recently made available to users in the form of the Oxford Nanopore MinION. Released to users through an early access programme, the MinION is made unique by its tiny form factor and ability to generate very long sequences from single DNA molecules. The platform is undergoing rapid evolution with three distinct nanopore types and five updates to library preparation chemi...

Self-assembly of nanopore-spanning lipid bilayers (npsLBs) paves the way toward chip-based integrated membrane protein biosensing. We present a novel approach to analyze the formation of npsLB at individual nanopores using quantitative analysis of high-resolution microscopy images. From this analysis we derive necessary conditions for the formation of npsLBs on nanopore arrays by liposome fusio...

Single-molecule picometer resolution nanopore tweezers (SPRNT) is a new tool for analyzing the motion of nucleic acids through molecular motors. With SPRNT, individual enzymatic motions along DNA as small as 40pm can be resolved on sub-millisecond time scales. Additionally, SPRNT reveals an enzyme's exact location with respect to a DNA strand's nucleotide sequence, enabling identification of se...

Supramolecular chirality may emerge from self-assembly processes to yield architectures that differ only in the topological arrangement of their constituent parts. Since the properties of the resulting enantiomeric assemblies are identical, purification and characterisation can be challenging. Here, we have examined the hypothesis that the intrinsic chirality of a protein nanopore can be exploi...

Channels formed by membrane proteins regulate the transport of water, ions or nutrients that are essential to cells' metabolism. Recent advances in nanotechnology allow us to fabricate solid-state nanopores for transporting and analyzing biomolecules. However, uncontrollable surface properties of a fabricated nanopore cause irregular transport of biomolecules, limiting potential biomimetic appl...