Contact: E. Salançon
Nanopipettes are stretched pure silica capillaries which end with a mouthpiece whose diameter can reach only a few nanometers. These objects, easy to fabricate, are widely used as local probes in near field (scanning ion conductance microscopy) or in solution directly for the detection of single molecules (single molecule detection). However, the geometry of nanopipettes is such that filling them can sometimes be difficult: a method based on "dynamic microdistillation" presented in the movie below has been developed. Since then, we have been interested in the electrical response of this type of object in saline solution. Here again, as for the gas flow, the shape of the pipettes has a strong influence on the electrical response which can present blocking, diode or resistivity effects depending on the case (saline concentration, shape).
