Characterization of nanogap chemical reactivity using peptide-capped gold nanoparticles and electrical detection

Nanogaps are usually combined with synthetic or biological molecules to produce nanodevices having novel properties. This combination is better realized by controlling the chemical properties of the nanogap. We show here that the presence of a specific chemical group inside nanogaps (30-90 nm) can be probed electrically using 10 nm gold nanoparticles derivatized by complementary functional groups. 100-10(4)-fold current increases were observed following the site-specific insertion of gold nanoparticles into the nanogap.