Novel nanotextured microelectrodes: Electrodeposition-based fabrication and their application to ultrasensitive nucleic acid detection

Microelectrodes have become well-established tools in a wide range of analytical studies and applications because they exhibit many cardinal advantages bestowed by their micrometer-sized dimensions over conventional large-surface-area electrodes. Nanostructures display quite unique properties different greatly from those of the bulk materials and are widely used in the field of electroanalysis. Nanotextured microelectrodes (NTMEs) are expected to combine attributes of nanostructures with microelectrodes. In this paper, electrodeposition technique, in combination with well-established microfabrication techniques, is used for the first time to the controllable fabrication of novel Pd, Pt, and Au NTMEs. The use of such NTMEs as a novel platform for ultrasensitive nucleic acid detection is also demonstrated.