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A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tube made of carbon with a diameter in the nanometre range (nanoscale). They are one of the allotropes of carbon. Two broad classes of carbon nanotubes are recognized:
MEMS is the technology of microscopic devices incorporating both electronic and moving parts. MEMS are made up of components between 1 and 100 micrometres in size, and MEMS devices generally range in size from 20 micrometres to a millimetre, although components arranged in arrays can be more than 1000 mm2. They usually consist of a central unit that processes data and several components that interact with the surroundings.
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing properties of matter. This definition of nanotechnology includes all types of research and technologies that deal with these special properties. It is common to see the plural form "nanotechnologies" as well as "nanoscale technologies" to refer to research and applications whose common trait is scale. An earlier understanding of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal of precisely manipulating atoms and molecules for fabricating macroscale products, now referred to as molecular nanotechnology.
Electrophysiology is the branch of physiology that studies the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage changes or electric current or manipulations on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole organs like the heart. In neuroscience, it includes measurements of the electrical activity of neurons, and, in particular, action potential activity. Recordings of large-scale electric signals from the nervous system, such as electroencephalography, may also be referred to as electrophysiological recordings. They are useful for electrodiagnosis and monitoring.
Indium tin oxide (ITO) is a ternary composition of indium, tin and oxygen in varying proportions. Depending on the oxygen content, it can be described as either a ceramic or an alloy. Indium tin oxide is typically encountered as an oxygen-saturated composition with a formulation of 74% In, 8% Sn, and 18% O by weight. Oxygen-saturated compositions are so typical that unsaturated compositions are termed oxygen-deficient ITO. It is transparent and colorless in thin layers, while in bulk form it is yellowish to gray. In the infrared region of the spectrum it acts as a metal-like mirror.
Nanosensors are nanoscale devices that measure physical quantities and convert these to signals that can be detected and analyzed. There are several ways proposed today to make nanosensors; these include top-down lithography, bottom-up assembly, and molecular self-assembly. There are different types of nanosensors in the market and in development for various applications, most notably in defense, environmental, and healthcare industries. These sensors share the same basic workflow: a selective binding of an analyte, signal generation from the interaction of the nanosensor with the bio-element, and processing of the signal into useful metrics.
The patch clamp technique is a laboratory technique in electrophysiology used to study ionic currents in individual isolated living cells, tissue sections, or patches of cell membrane. The technique is especially useful in the study of excitable cells such as neurons, cardiomyocytes, muscle fibers, and pancreatic beta cells, and can also be applied to the study of bacterial ion channels in specially prepared giant spheroplasts.
Graphene is a carbon allotrope consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a honeycomb planar nanostructure. The name "graphene" is derived from "graphite" and the suffix -ene, indicating the presence of double bonds within the carbon structure.
Plasma etching is a form of plasma processing used to fabricate integrated circuits. It involves a high-speed stream of glow discharge (plasma) of an appropriate gas mixture being shot at a sample. The plasma source, known as etch species, can be either charged (ions) or neutral. During the process, the plasma generates volatile etch products at room temperature from the chemical reactions between the elements of the material etched and the reactive species generated by the plasma. Eventually the atoms of the shot element embed themselves at or just below the surface of the target, thus modifying the physical properties of the target.
Etching is used in microfabrication to chemically remove layers from the surface of a wafer during manufacturing. Etching is a critically important process module in fabrication, and every wafer undergoes many etching steps before it is complete.
Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are devices that contain multiple microelectrodes through which neural signals are obtained or delivered, essentially serving as neural interfaces that connect neurons to electronic circuitry. There are two general classes of MEAs: implantable MEAs, used in vivo, and non-implantable MEAs, used in vitro. In each class, there are rigid, flexible, and stretchable microelectrode array.
Nanoarchitectures for lithium-ion batteries are attempts to employ nanotechnology to improve the design of lithium-ion batteries. Research in lithium-ion batteries focuses on improving energy density, power density, safety, durability and cost.
Automated patch clamping is beginning to replace manual patch clamping as a method to measure the electrical activity of individual cells. Different techniques are used to automate patch clamp recordings from cells in cell culture and in vivo. This work has been ongoing since the late 1990s by research labs and companies trying to reduce its complexity and cost of patch clamping manually. Patch clamping for a long time was considered an art form and is still very time consuming and tedious, especially in vivo. The automation techniques try to reduce user error and variability in obtaining quality electrophysiology recordings from single cells.
Nanoinjection is the process of using a microscopic lance and electrical forces to deliver DNA to a cell. It is claimed to be more effective than microinjection because the lance used is ten times smaller than a micropipette and the method uses no fluid. The nanoinjector mechanism is operated while submerged in a pH buffered solution. Then, a positive electrical charge is applied to the lance, which accumulates negatively charged DNA on its surface. The nanoinjector mechanism then penetrates the zygotic membranes, and a negative charge is applied to the lance, releasing the accumulated DNA within the cell. The lance is required to maintain a constant elevation on both entry and exit of the cell.
A rapidly increasing list of graphene production techniques have been developed to enable graphene's use in commercial applications.
Self-cleaning surfaces are a class of materials with the inherent ability to remove any debris or bacteria from their surfaces in a variety of ways. The self-cleaning functionality of these surfaces are commonly inspired by natural phenomena observed in lotus leaves, gecko feet, and water striders to name a few. The majority of self-cleaning surfaces can be placed into three categories:
- superhydrophobic
- superhydrophilic
- photocatalytic.
Tissue nanotransfection (TNT) is an electroporation-based technique capable of gene and drug cargo delivery or transfection at the nanoscale. Furthermore, TNT is a scaffold-less tissue engineering (TE) technique that can be considered cell-only or tissue inducing depending on cellular or tissue level applications. The transfection method makes use of nanochannels to deliver cargo to tissues topically.
A probe tip is an instrument used in scanning probe microscopes (SPMs) to scan the surface of a sample and make nano-scale images of surfaces and structures. The probe tip is mounted on the end of a cantilever and can be as sharp as a single atom. In microscopy, probe tip geometry and the composition of both the tip and the surface being probed directly affect resolution and imaging quality. Tip size and shape are extremely important in monitoring and detecting interactions between surfaces. SPMs can precisely measure electrostatic forces, magnetic forces, chemical bonding, Van der Waals forces, and capillary forces. SPMs can also reveal the morphology and topography of a surface.
Single-Entity Electrochemistry (SEE) refers to the electroanalysis of an individual unit of interest. A unique feature of SEE is that it unifies multiple different branches of electrochemistry. Single-Entity Electrochemistry pushes the bounds of the field as it can measure entities on a scale of 100 microns to angstroms. Single-Entity Electrochemistry is important because it gives the ability to view how a single molecule, or cell, or "thing" affects the bulk response, and thus the chemistry that might have gone unknown otherwise. The ability to monitor the movement of one electron or ion from one unit to another is valuable, as many vital reactions and mechanisms undergo this process. Electrochemistry is well suited for this measurement due to its incredible sensitivity. Single-Entity Electrochemistry can be used to investigate nanoparticles, wires, vesicles, nanobubbles, nanotubes, cells, and viruses, and other small molecules and ions. Single-entity electrochemistry has been successfully used to determine the size distribution of particles as well as the number of particles present inside a vesicle or other similar structures
Patch-sequencing (patch-seq) is a modification of patch-clamp technique that combines electrophysiological, transcriptomic and morphological characterization of individual neurons. In this approach, the neuron's cytoplasm is collected and processed for RNAseq after electrophysiological recordings are performed on it. The cell is simultaneously filled with a dye that allows for subsequent morphological reconstruction.
References
- ↑ Stanley, John; Pourmand, Nader (2020-10-01). "Nanopipettes—The past and the present". APL Materials. 8 (10): 100902. Bibcode:2020APLM....8j0902S. doi: 10.1063/5.0020011 . ISSN 2166-532X.
- ↑ K. Hu, Y. Wang, H. Cai and V. Mirkin, Analytical Chemistry, 2014, 86, 8897-8901
- ↑ Y. Fu, H. Tokuhisa and L. Baker, Chemical Communications, 2009, 4877-4879
- 1 2 M. Schrlau, E. Falls, B. Ziober and H. Bau, Nanotechnology, 2008, 19, 0151101
- ↑ R. Singhal, S. Bhattacharyya, Z. Orynbayeva, E. Vitol, G. Friedman and Y. Gogotsi, Nanotechnology, 2010, 21, 015304
- ↑ Jayant, Krishna; Wenzel, Michael; Bando, Yuki; Hamm, Jordan P.; Mandriota, Nicola; Rabinowitz, Jake H.; Plante, Ilan Jen-La; Owen, Jonathan S.; Sahin, Ozgur; Shepard, Kenneth L.; Yuste, Rafael (January 2019). "Flexible Nanopipettes for Minimally Invasive Intracellular Electrophysiology In Vivo". Cell Reports. 26 (1): 266–278.e5. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2018.12.019. PMC 7263204 . PMID 30605681.
- ↑ Hugh, Jeffrey Mc; Makarchuk, Stanislaw; Mozheiko, Daria; Fernandez-Villegas, Ana; Schierle, Gabriele S. Kaminski; Kaminski, Clemens; Keyser, Ulrich; Holcman, David; Rouach, Nathalie (2023). "Diversity of dynamic voltage patterns in neuronal dendrites revealed by nanopipette electrophysiology". Nanoscale. doi:10.1039/D2NR03475A. PMC 10373629 . S2CID 258642817.