The osmotic energy, as a representative of sustainable clean energy, has provided promising strategies to the energy shortage and the environmental pollution. Via selectively diffusing (cations or anions) through the porous membrane, the osmotic energy can be converted into electricity directly. Nevertheless, the energy-conversion efficiency is significantly limited in the lower surface charge at the membrane surface. In response, here a novel gate-controlled nanopore (field effect transistor-like) as an efficient osmotic generator is exploited. With real-time application of negative gate voltages, the surface charge density is accurately enhanced by an order of magnitude from −0.01 to −0.1 C m⁻² while maintaining an effective salinity difference. Based on that, the single-pore osmotic power is amazingly boosted by four orders of magnitude, reaching the summit of 2.90 nW, which outperforms the state-of-the-art 2D system represented by single-layer MoS₂ of 1 nW. Further expanding into porous membranes, the corresponding power density reaches the pioneering of 1008 W m⁻², far more exceeding the commercial standard of 5 W m⁻². Obviously, this work gives an underlying insight into ionic transport in confined nanochannels, as well as providing an alternative template for efficient osmotic energy generation.

The three-step wet etching (TSWE) method has been proven to be a promising technique for fabricating silicon nanopores. Despite its potential, one of the bottlenecks of this method is the precise control of the silicon etching and etch-stop, which results in obtaining a well-defined nanopore size. Herein, we present a novel strategy leveraging electrochemical passivation to achieve accurate control over the silicon etching process. By dynamically controlling the oxide layer growth, rapid and reliable etch-stop was achieved in under 4 s, enabling the controllable fabrication of sub-10 nm silicon nanopores. The thickness of the oxide layer was precisely modulated by adjusting the passivation potential, achieving nanopore size shrinkage with a precision better than 2 nm, which can be further enhanced with more refined potential control. This scalable method significantly enhances the TSWE process, offering an efficient approach for producing small-size silicon nanopores with high precision. Importantly, the precise etching control facilitated by electrochemical passivation holds promise for the cost-effective production of high-density, air-insulated monolithic integrated circuits. (Figure presented.)

Nanopore sensors, owing to their distinctive structural properties, can be used to detect biomolecular translocation events. These sensors operate by monitoring variations in electric current amplitude and duration, thereby enabling the calibration and distinction of various biomolecules. As a result, nanopores emerge as a potentially powerful tool in the field of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing. However, the interplay between testing bandwidth and noise often leads to the loss of part of the critical translocation signals, presenting a substantial challenge for the precise measurement of biomolecules. In this context, innovative detection mechanisms have been developed, including optical detection, tunneling current detection, and nanopore field-effect transistor (FET) detection. These novel detection methods are based on but beyond traditional nanopore techniques and each of them has unique advantages. Notably, nanopore FET sensors stand out for their high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and high bandwidth measurement capabilities, overcoming the limitations typically associated with traditional solid-state nanopore (SSN) technologies and thus paving the way for new avenues to biomolecule detection. This review begins by elucidating the fundamental detection principles, development history, applications, and fabrication methods for traditional SSNs. It then introduces three novel detection mechanisms, with a particular emphasis on nanopore FET detection. Finally, a comprehensive analysis of the advantages and challenges associated with both SSNs and nanopore FET sensors is performed, and then insights into the future development trajectories for nanopore FET sensors in DNA sequencing are provided. This review has two main purposes: firstly, to provide researchers with a preliminary understanding of advancements in the nanopore field, and secondly, to offer a comprehensive analysis of the fabrication techniques, transverse current detection principles, challenges, and future development trends in the field of nanopore FET sensors. This comprehensive analysis aims to help give researchers in-depth insights into cutting-edge advancements in the field of nanopore FET sensors.

Ionic FETs have enormous potential for energy conversion, sensing, and ionic circuits due to their efficient regulation of the nanochannel. Here ionic FETs based on single-crystal silicon nanopores and the rectification of the fabricated devices are studied. The electrical characterization results demonstrated that since the silicon-based nanopores have the advantage of modulating the surface charge due to their semiconductor nature and benefitting from the effective 3D gating effect on the nanochannel, the magnitude and polarity of surface charge can be modulated by the gate voltage. The rectification effect can be adjusted by applying a certain voltage and fulfilling a transition between anion selectivity and cation selectivity when the surface charge polarity is reversed. Moreover, current–voltage characteristics of the reported ionic FET can be switched between ohmic and diode-like regimes. The proposed ionic FETs supply a novel platform to study the ionic properties and have great potential to be applied in large-scale ionic circuits due to their excellent performance. Finally, simulation results prove the surface charge modulated by the gate voltage determines the magnitude and direction of rectification, which is consistent with the reported experiment result.

Solid-state nanopores attract widespread interest, owning to outstanding robustness, extensive material availability, as well as capability for flexible manufacturing. Bioinspired solid-state nanopores further emerge as potential nanofluidic diodes for mimicking the rectification progress of unidirectional ionic transport in biological K⁺ channels. However, challenges that remain in rectification are over-reliance on complicated surface modifications and limited control accuracy in size and morphology. In this study, suspended Si₃N₄ films of only 100 nm thickness are used as substrate and funnel-shaped nanopores are controllably etched on that with single-nanometer precision, by focused ion beam (FIB) equipped with a flexibly programmable ion dose at any position. A small diameter 7 nm nanopore can be accurately and efficiently fabricated in only 20 ms and verified by a self-designed mathematical model. Without additional modification, funnel-shaped Si₃N₄ nanopores functioned as bipolar nanofluidic diodes achieve high rectification by simply filling each side with acidic and basic solution, respectively. Main factors are finely tuned experimentally and simulatively to enhance the controllability. Moreover, nanopore arrays are efficiently prepared to further improve rectification performance, which has great potential for high-throughput practical applications such as extended release of drugs, nanofluidic logic systems, and sensing for environmental monitoring and clinical diagnosis.

Correction to: Microsystems & Nanoengineering published online 16 May 2023 Correction Following publication of the original article¹, it was noticed that the phrase ‘DNA sequencing’ is incorrect, which should be replaced by ‘biosensing’. The original paper has been updated.

The application of single-crystal silicon (SCS) nanopore structures in single-molecule-based analytical devices is an emerging approach for the separation and analysis of nanoparticles. The key challenge is to fabricate individual SCS nanopores with precise sizes in a controllable and reproducible way. This paper introduces a fast-stop ionic current-monitored three-step wet etching (TSWE) method for the controllable fabrication of SCS nanopores. Since the nanopore size has a quantitative relationship with the corresponding ionic current, it can be regulated by controlling the ionic current. Thanks to the precise current-monitored and self-stop system, an array of nanoslits with a feature size of only 3 nm was obtained, which is the smallest size ever reported using the TSWE method. Furthermore, by selecting different current jump ratios, individual nanopores of specific sizes were controllably prepared, and the smallest deviation from the theoretical value was 1.4 nm. DNA translocation measurement results revealed that the prepared SCS nanopores possessed the excellent potential to be applied in DNA sequencing. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Temperature sensors are widely used in industrial production, national defense and military fields. The traditional temperature sensors normally operate in a limited temperature range no more than 200 °C, which cannot be used for extreme high temperature detections. In this paper, a thermal protection method for the sensing graphene membrane is proposed and a graphene high temperature sensor has been fabricated and investigated. By growing a single silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) protective layer on top of graphene, our design not only solves the problem that graphene is easily oxidized at high temperature, but also prevents graphene from being polluted by impurities, which would lead to the degradation of graphene performance. We further explore the protective effect of Si₃N₄ layer with different thicknesses on the performance of the sensor. It has been found that the 400 nm Si₃N₄ protective layer gives the best protective capability. The sensor exhibits a positive temperature coefficient (PTC) from 50 to 600 °C and a maximal temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) value of 0.29% °C⁻¹ at 150 °C is achieved. It has been demonstrated that our graphene high temperature sensor with protective layer structure maintains good stability not only at high temperature up to 600 °C, but also over a long-period of time under room temperature. In short, the high temperature sensor possesses a wide temperature measurement range with micro dimensions, a relatively high TCR and a smaller thermal hysteresis. The thermal protection approach proposed in this paper provides a new idea for the fabrication of high temperature pressure sensor, which is expected to be applied in aerospace engines and oil wells, etc.

The high-temperature pressure sensors have wide applications in aerospace, petroleum, geothermal exploration, automotive electronics, and other fields. However, the traditional silicon-based pressure sensors are restricted to pressure measurement under 120~{\circ }\text{C} and cannot be satisfied to measure the pressure of various gases or liquids in high temperature and other harsh environments. This article proposes a novel high-temperature pressure sensor based on graphene, in which a rectangular cavity is applied to improve the piezoresistive characteristics of the sensor. The unique of this sensor is that the graphene is coated by the silicon nitride (Si3N4) membrane, which could avoid the oxidation of graphene in high temperature and increase the temperature tolerance range. The sensor was placed at various temperatures ( 50~{\circ }\text{C} - 420~{\circ }\text{C} ) to explore the temperature characteristics, achieving a maximal temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of 0.322% {\circ }\text{C}{-{1}}. Moreover, the sensor with a 64 \times 9\,\,\mu \text{m}{{2}} cavity has a high pressure sensitivity of 5.32\times 10{-{4}} kPa {-{1}} , enabling a wide range from 100 kPa to 10 Pa. Experimental results indicate that the proposed sensor possesses superior pressure sensitivity, a wide pressure detection range, and a high-temperature tolerance of 420~{\circ }\text{C} , which provides new insight into fabricating high-temperature pressure sensors based on graphene and creates more applications in different fields.

Nanopores have attracted widespread attention in DNA sequencing and protein or biomarker detection, owning to the single-molecule-scale detection accuracy. Despite the most use of naturally biological nanopores before, solid-state nanopores are widely developed with strong robustness, controllable sizes and geometries, a wide range of materials available, as well as flexible manufacturing. Therefore, various techniques typically based on focused ion beam or electron beam have been explored to drill nanopores directly on free-standing nanofilms. To further reduce and sculpt the pore size and shape for nano or sub-nano space-time sensing precision, various controllable shrinking technologies have been employed. Correspondingly, high-energy-beam-induced contrac-tion with direct visual feedback represents the most widely used. The ability to change the pore diameter was attributed to surface tension induced original material migration into the nanopore center or new material deposition on the nanopore surface. This paper reviews typical solid-state nanopore shrinkage technologies, based on the careful summary of their principles and characteristics in particularly size and morphology changes. Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages of different methods have also been compared completely. Finally, this review concludes with an optimistic outlook on the future of solid-state nanopores.