Solid state nanogaps for electrochemical detection fabricated using edge lithography

•A simple nanogap fabrication strategy is reported.•Using this fabrication strategy gaps with 100 and 50 nm spacing have been realized.•These devices are suitable for electrochemical detection applications.

Nanogap electrodes have uses in fields such as chemical sensing, molecular transport, plasmonics and DNA sequencing. In this contribution a new fabrication strategy for nanogap electrodes is reported. Using this fabrication strategy, electrodes have been successfully created featuring gap sizes of 100 and 50 nm. For the electrodes with a gap size of 50 nm the electrochemical behavior is evaluated by means of cyclic voltammetry in combination with redox cycling. The obtained voltammogram corresponds to finite element simulations and the shape of the voltammogram indicates an almost Nernstian quasi-reversible CV is obtained for a reversible redox couple, which means the devices are suited for electrochemical detection. Fabrication of these devices is reliable as a yield of >95% was obtained.

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