WSEAS Transactions on Circuits and Systems
Print ISSN: 1109-2734, E-ISSN: 2224-266X
Volume 16, 2017
Computational Investigation of the Ionic Conductance through Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) Nanopores
Authors: , , ,
Abstract: Solid-state nanopores have emerged as versatile devices for probing single molecules. Because the channel conductance of the ionic flow through nanopores scales inversely with the membrane thickness, few-atoms thick materials are ideal candidates with an expected high signal-to-noise ratio. On one hand, graphene nanopores have been extensively studied because they exhibit the highest signal. However, they also exhibit high noise. On the other hand, transition metal dichalcogenides such as molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) are potentially advantageous due to their rich optoelectronic and mechanical properties. In this paper, we investigate the dynamics of KCl ions through MoS2 nanopores using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. MoS2 nanopores with different diameters, from 1.0 to 3.0 nm and nanoporous membranes with different thicknesses, from single-layer to trilayers MoS2 are studied. The structural properties of ions and water inside MoS2 nanopores are discussed and the performance of MoS2 nanopores to conduct ions at low voltages is quantified by computing I-V curves in order to extract open pore conductance and by comparing MD data to analytical models. This comparison reveals that ionic conductance and effective geometrical parameters for MoS2 nanoporous membranes extracted from models are overestimated. We provide open pore benchmark signals for further translocation simulations/experiments using MoS2 nanopores.
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Keywords: nanopores, MoS2, MD simulations, open pore conductance, bulk conductivity, effective diameter, effective thickness
Pages: 35-44
WSEAS Transactions on Circuits and Systems, ISSN / E-ISSN: 1109-2734 / 2224-266X, Volume 16, 2017, Art. #5