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2014
Book Article
Titel
All-diamond electrochemical devices: Fabrication, properties, and applications
Abstract
Batch production of all-diamond devices is possible using different technologies, such as photolithography, e-beam lithography, nanosphere lithographay, and etching processes. In particular, the NEEs fabricated by nanosphere lithography offer a cheap and simple alternative to e-beam lithography to obtain electrodes of a few hundreds of nanometers or less. These small-dimensional electrode arrays show advantages over planar macro-sized diamond electrodes. By optimization of Faradaic and capacitive currents in diamond UMEAs, a 50-1000 times better sensitivity than planar macro-sized electrodes is achieved; In combination with the efficiency and suitability of the selective electrochemical surface termination of NEAs or NEEs, it offers a new versatile system for electrochemical sensing with high selectivity. Sharpened diamond AFM tips show better image resolution and have long lifetimes with respect to wear resistance. All-diamond AFM-SECM tips have been demonstrated as powerful and efficient tools for recording topography and electrochemical signals of samples. In future work more attention will be paid to in vivo applications of all-diamond devices (e.g., fast and sensitive detection of biomolecules released from cells, in situ monitoring of cell/bacterial growth, etc.), surface cleaning/refreshing of biomolecule-functionalized/adsorbed diamond surfaces, the effects of surface chemistry (terminations and linker chemistry), and surface structures (nanotextures, nanowires, and porosity) on their sensing performance. Besides these, future work needs to concentrate on simplifying fabrication processes and marketing them at reasonable prices, as well as developing their industrial applications.