Rigid and conductive dual nanoprobe for single cell analysis

Abstract

Electrical property characterization of a single cell can be used to infer about its physiological condition, e.g. cell viability. Due to that, a dual nanoprobe-microfluidic system for electrical properties measurement of single cells has been proposed. This paper is concerned about the mechanical and electrical characterizations of the dual nanoprobe. Electrical and mechanical characterizations were conducted to measure the resistance and the strength of the dual nanoprobe for five different metals i.e. Aluminium, Copper, Silver, Tungsten, and Zinc using finite element approach. From the findings, Tungsten's nanoprobe has the highest strength while the resistance values for the five materials are not significantly different. Therefore, Tungsten is selected as the most recommended metal for the dual nanoprobe. We also performed single cell electrical measurement to test the functionality of the sensor. This work provides general information of the nanoprobe which can be used as a framework in other applications involving Nano devices i.e. cell surgery and drug delivery.