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Tutorial Review

Article citation: Li-Jing Cheng, Chem. Soc. Rev., 2010, DOI: 10.1039/b822554k


Nanofluidic diodes

Li-Jing Cheng and L. Jay Guo


Ionic rectifying effect is a unique ion transport phenomenon observed in certain types of nanofluidic devices and cannot be implemented in microfluidics. Analogous to a diode in solid-state electronics, these diode-like nanofluidic devices can be used to turn the ionic flow on and off depending on the polarity of the applied electric-field. In this tutorial review, we summarize recent advances in the experimental and theoretical studies of ion current rectification in several types of nanofluidic devices. We also present a unified model to elucidate the physical mechanism behind the asymmetric ion transport behavior in nanofluidics.

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