Fabrication of nanochannels

Abstract

Nature has inspired the fabrication of intelligent devices to meet the needs of the advanced community and better understand the imitation of biology. As a biomimetic nanodevice, nanochannels/nanopores aroused increasing interest because of their potential applications in nanofluidic fields. In this review, we have summarized some recent results mainly focused on the design and fabrication of one-dimensional nanochannels, which can be made of many materials, including polymers, inorganics, biotic materials, and composite materials. These nanochannels have some properties similar to biological channels, such as selectivity, voltage-dependent current fluctuations, ionic rectification current and ionic gating, etc. Therefore, they show great potential for the fields of biosensing, filtration, and energy conversions. These advances can not only help people to understand the living processes in nature, but also inspire scientists to develop novel nanodevices with better performance for mankind.