Microfluidic Analyte Transport to Nanorods for Photonic and Electrochemical Sensing Applications

There has recently been a growing use of surface bound nanorods within electrochemical and optical sensing applications. Predictions of the microfluidic rate of analyte transport to such nanorods (either individual or to an array) remain important for sensor design and data analysis; however, such predictions are difficult, as nanorod aspect ratios can vary by several orders of magnitude. In this study, through the use of numerical simulation, we propose an explicit analytical approach to predict the steady-state diffusion-limited rate of mass transport to (individual) surface bound nanorods of variable aspect ratio. We show that, when compared to simulation, this approach provides accurate estimations across a wide range of Péclet numbers.