Fabrication of 1d nanochannels with thin glass wafers for single molecule studies

1D nanochannels are fabricated by direct bonding between the silicon wafer containing the nanochannels, microchannels, access holes and the blank thin glass of 170 µm thickness. The thin glass wafers are used as channel covers because of their appropriate thickness for use with coverglass corrected water immersion lenses. As the nanochannel chips are used on an inverted microscope, access holes are created in the silicon wafer so that polyimide is good selection for protection during deep etching of the macro holes. Fabricated nanochannels with 50 nm depth were successfully filled with low concentration of solutions Alexa 488 could be observed through fluorescence microscopy. These nanochannels are promising for mobility studies of single molecules such as quantum dots.