A DNA turbine powered by a transmembrane potential across a nanopore

Rotary motors play key roles in energy transduction, from macroscale windmills to nanoscale turbines such as ATP synthase in cells. Despite our abilities to construct engines at many scales, developing functional synthetic turbines at the nanoscale has remained challenging. Here, we experimentally demonstrate rationally designed nanoscale DNA...

Sustained unidirectional rotation of a self-organized DNA rotor on a nanopore

Flow-driven rotary motors such as windmills and water wheels drive functional processes in human society. Although examples of such rotary motors also feature prominently in cell biology, their synthetic construction at the nanoscale has remained challenging. Here we demonstrate flow-driven rotary motion of a self-organized DNA nanostructure...

Nano-Optical Tweezing of Single Proteins in Plasmonic Nanopores

Single-molecule sensing technologies aim to detect and characterize single biomolecules, but generally need labeling while the measurement times and throughput are severely restricted by a lack of positional control over the molecule. Here, a plasmonic nanopore biosensor is reported where single molecules can be electrophoretically delivered...

Active delivery of single DNA molecules into a plasmonic nanopore for label-free optical sensing

Plasmon resonance biosensors provide ultimate sensitivity at the single-molecule level. This sensitivity is, however, associated with a nanometer-sized confined hotspot, and molecular transport toward the sensor relies on inefficient diffusion. Here, we combine a plasmonic nanoantenna with a solid-state nanopore and demonstrate that single...

Label-Free Optical Detection of DNA Translocations through Plasmonic Nanopores

Solid-state nanopores are single-molecule sensors that hold great potential for rapid protein and nucleic-acid analysis. Despite their many opportunities, the conventional ionic current detection scheme that is at the heart of the sensor suffers inherent limitations. This scheme intrinsically couples signal strength to the driving voltage,...