Events

◆Theme◆
Metallic-Glass Nanotube Arrays: A Novel Device for Various Applications

◆Overview◆
A new group of thin film metallic glasses have been known to exhibit properties different from conventional crystalline metal films, though their bulk forms are already well-known for properties such as high strength because of their amorphous structure.

We successfully fabricated the first-ever and ACS Award-winning metallic glass nanotubes (MGNTs) on Si by a simple lithography and sputter deposition process for very large-scale integration. Like biological nanostructured surfaces, MGNTs show some surprising water repelling and attracting properties. Nanotubes are 500-750 nm tall and 500-750 nm in diameter, shown on the right. The MGNT surface becomes hydrophobic, repelling water. By heating and cooling the array, water can be repelled and attached to the surface.

There are two examples presented in this talk based on modifications of this scheme. First, after modification of biotin, the array acts as a waveguiding layer for an optical sensor. The MGNT sensor waveguide could readily detect the streptavidin by monitoring the shift. The detection limit of the arrays for streptavidin is estimated to be 25 nM, with a detection time of 10 min. Thus, the arrays may be used as a versatile platform for high-sensitive label-free optical biosensing. Second, the array is prepared on a heating device on Si and, with an applied electric voltage to the heating device underneath, the array surface was heated to generate an extending force from these nanochambers so that the array are functioned as biomimetic artificial suckers for thermally adhesion response in biological systems.

This work was financially supported by the Applied Research Center for Thin-Film Metallic Glass from The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan.