Surface charge density of the track-etched nanopores in polyethylene terephthalate foils

Abstract

Surface charge is one of the most important properties of nanopores, which determines the nanopore performance in many practical applications. We report the surface charge densities of track-etched nanopores, which were obtained by measuring the streaming current and pore conductance, respectively. Experimental results reveal that surface charge densities depend significantly on the salt concentrations. In addition the values obtained with the pore conductance were always several times higher than those calculated with the streaming current, and the gel-like surface layer on the nanopore was considered to be responsible for this discrepancy. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.