Sugar-stimulated robust nanodevice: 4-Carboxyphenylboronic acid modified single glass conical nanopores

•A single glass conical nanopore was immobilized with 4-carboxyphenylboronic acid.•The modified channel can modulate ion transport properties via sugar.•The smart nanodevice can switch between the ionic non- and rectifying states.•The ion current rectification ratio increased linearly with concentration.

In this work, we demonstrate a smart robust nanodevice that rectifies the ion current in response to sugar stimulation. The response is achieved by immobilizing 4-carboxyphenylboronic acid to the wall of a single glass conical nanopore. This smart robust nanodevice shows excellent sugar responsive capacity with the switch between the non-rectifying and rectifying states of the ion transport properties. The ion current rectification ratio increases linearly with increasing concentration of glucose and correlates to the concentration of the target by a simple linear regression equation, which makes quantitative nanosensing easily accessible for application in biomedical fields.