Optimization of the nanofluidic design for label-free detection of biomolecules using a nanowall array

Single-molecule detection of the biomolecules in a label-free manner has a tremendous impact for various fields. Recently, we developed a label-free detection method without any pretreatment procedures, which is based on optical diffraction derived from a nanofluidic channel array (in other words, a nanowall array). However, the single-molecule detection is hampered by the inherent sensitivity of the method. We propose a solution to improve the sensitivity of the method by adjusting the height of the nanowall array. Numerical simulations showed that a larger nanowall array height could provide better sensitivity, but a lower nanowall array height could provide better sensitivity difference, contrary to what we would intuitively expect. We used a 250 nm height nanowall array to achieve a label-free detection of 0.18 DNA molecules to verify the simulation prediction. These results demonstrate our method has a potential to be implemented in a highly sensitive refractometer with small sample consumption.