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Potentiometric redox measurements were made in subnanoliter droplets of solutions using an optically transparent nanoporous gold electrode strategically mounted on the stage of an inverted microscope. Nanoporous gold was prepared via dealloying gold leaf with concentrated nitric acid and was chemisorbed to a standard microscope coverslip with (3-mercaptopropyl)trimethoxysilane. The gold surface was further modified with 1-hexanethiol to optimize hydrophobicity of the surface to allow for redox measurements to be made in nanoscopic volumes. Time traces of the open-circuit potential (OCP) were used to construct Nernst plots to evaluate the applicability of the droplet-based potentiometric redox measurement system. Two poised one-electron transfer systems (potassium ferricyanide/ferrocyanide and ferrous/ferric ammonium sulfate) yielded Nernstian slopes of -58.5 and -60.3 mV, respectively, with regression coefficients greater than 0.99. The y-intercepts of the two agreed well to the formal potential of the two standard oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) calibrants, ZoBell's and Light's solution. The benzoquinone and hydroquinone redox couple was examined as a representative two-electron redox system; a Nernst slope of -30.8 mV was obtained. Additionally, two unpoised systems (potassium ferricyanide and ascorbic acid) were studied to evaluate the system under conditions where only one form of the redox couple is present in appreciable concentrations. Again, slopes near the Nernstian values of -59 and -29 mV, respectively, were obtained. All experiments were carried out using solution volumes between 280 and 1400 pL with injection volumes between 8 and 100 pL. The miniscule volumes allowed for extremely rapid mixing (305 ms) as well. The small volumes and rapid mixing along with the high accuracy and sensitivity of these measurements lend support to the use of this approach in applications where time is a factor and only small volumes are available for testing.

Nanopore sensing is a label-free method for characterizing water-soluble molecules. The ability to accurately identify and characterize an analyte depends on the residence time of the molecule within the pore. It is shown here that when a Au25(SG)18 metallic cluster is bound to an α-hemolysin (αHL) nanopore, the mean residence time of polyethylene glycol (PEG) within the pore is increased by over 1 order of magnitude. This leads to an increase in the range of detectable PEG sizes and improves the peak resolution within the PEG-induced current blockade distribution. A model describing the relationship between the analyte residence time and the width of the peaks in the current blockade distribution is included. Finally, evidence is presented that shows the Coulombic interaction between the charged analyte and cluster plays an important role in the residence time enhancement, which suggests the cluster-based approach could be used to increase the residence time of a wide variety of charged analyte molecules.