Aim of the course
HIGH RESOLUTION ELECTRONIC MEASUREMENTS in NANO-BIO SCIENCE
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Since the mid-80', when Binning and Roher made possible to "see" the
atoms
piece by
piece, it has become more and more common, often
necessary, to study and to
develop structures
with nanometric
dimensions. In disciplines like electronics, material science,
functional
chemistry, molecular biology and
optoelectronics the
approach "atom-by-atom" or "molecule-by-molecule" has made
devices with
nanometric dimensions affordable, with original
functionalities
and
often with stunning performance. Accessing the physical/chemical
properties of
these devices has therefore become essential and
various techniques and methods
(electrical, optical, chemical, mechanical
etc.) have been developed to accomplish this
task.
This course focuses on
the method and the instrumentation to perform the
electrical
characterisation
of the matter
. The investigation of the electrical properties
of nanoscopic samples
(carrier mobility, conductance, dielectric costant, charge
density,
impedance, charge trapping times, etc.) is not only essential
when the samples
are going to be used directly as a pure electronic
device. Their knowledge
is often beneficial also as a complementary
information in conjunction with
other techniques
(spectroscopic,
morphological, etc.) to address the primary
chemical/physical properties
of the matter at the nanoscale.
On a more practical basis, monitoring the electrical properties of nanobiosamples and tracking their variations upon interaction with external forces is a powerfull way to build electronic nanobiosensors . The counting of cells by detecting conductance variations, the tracking of neuronal cell differentiation by cathecolamine exocitosys monitoring through amperometric measurements or the "transparent" detection of light in silicon waveguides all demonstrate how electrical measurements, in all possible domains of science, have reached a high degree of sophistication. Not to mention how compact, flexible and cheap an electronic system can be when compared with other kind of measurement techniques.
The course aims to cover various aspects of electronic measurements,
from
the
measurement techniques
used to access the
electrical properties of the nanoscopic systems to the
specific circuits
necessary to sense the tiny electric signals with the best possible resolution.
The course is thus intended for
:
The program is structured to be a University-style course and
not
a collection
of seminars. Topics are taken from the "basics" and
developed untill examples
of state-of-art realisations. A documentation
will be provided at the beginning
of each lesson. Time for discussions
will be available at the end of
each lesson.
In particular
the course
will focus on :
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How to use and possibly to design dedicated instrumentation for the measurement of
currents,
voltages, impedance and noise with the state-of-the-art
sensitivity.
The course will introduce the best commercial instrumentation and the best circuit architectures, the
design
considerations for
maximum resolution and their achievable
performance together with the specific
aspects to be taken into account
when integrating the full instrument on a
single chip.
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How to perform impedance spectroscopy measurements with sub-attofarad
resolution
and nanoscale position resolution
.
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How to perform electrical measurements on biomolecules in-vitro in
the
presence of physiological saline solution. In particular how to make ohmic
contacts (DC electrical access) to the liquid, how to use the electrolite as
conformal conductive electrode and how to prevent DC conduction through
metal-liquid interfaces (AC electrical access).
.
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How to use electronic noise as a signal to access the physical properties
of
matter at the nanoscale
.
At the end of the course, an attendance certificate will be provided.
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