Noise and sensitivity characteristics of solid-state nanopores with a boron nitride 2-D membrane on a pyrex substrate. Issue 10 (24th February 2016) - Park, Kyeong-Beom
Abstract : We have fabricated highly sensitive and low noise solid-state nanopores with multiple layers of boron nitride (BN) membranes transferred onto a pyrex substrate. Abstract : We have fabricated highly sensitive and low noise solid-state nanopores with multiple layers of boron nitride (BN) membranes transferred onto a pyrex substrate. Both the dielectric and flicker noise of the device, which have been described as one of the bottlenecks to making highly sensitive 2-D membrane nanopore devices, have been reduced as follows. Firstly, a pyrex substrate with a low dielectric constant ( ε r = 4.7–5.1) and low dielectric loss ( D < 0.001) is used instead of a Si substrate to reduce the dielectric noise of the device. Secondly, flicker noise is minimized by employing a 100 nm thick SiN x supporting layer with a small opening (less than 100 nm) for BN membrane transfer to enhance the mechanical stability. The flicker noise is further reduced by transferring multiple layers of BN instead of a single layer of BN. The resulting multi-layered BN device shows significant reduction of dielectric and 1/ f noise as compared to the devices with a single layer of the BN and Si substrate. Furthermore, we demonstrate dsDNA translocations with a high signal to noise ratio around 50 at 100 and 10 kHz bandwidths.