Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 22, 2025

Fine-tuning the Size and Minimizing the Noise of Solid-state Nanopores
Published on: October 31, 2013
Comment on "Breakdown of electroneutrality in nanopores"
Pragati Shaw1, Ethan Wood2, Tian Tang1
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Abstract:
Levy et al. [1] reported the breakdown of electroneutrality in confined nanopores embedded in a dielectric medium. A Robin boundary condition was derived which eliminates the need to include the dielectric medium explicitly when solving for the electric field within the nanopore. In this comment, we point out issues related to the approximations made during the derivation of the boundary condition. The errors caused by the use of this boundary condition can be significant even for nanochannels of large aspect (length to radius) ratio, a condition on which the approximations in Levy et al. [1] are based.
Related Concept Videos
Electrostatic Boundary Conditions
The surface integral of an electric field is given by Gauss's law in integral form and is related to...
Potential Due to a Polarized Object
P-N junction
Resting Membrane Potential
The Inside of a Neuron is More Negative
The membrane potential of a cell can be measured by inserting a microelectrode into a cell and comparing the charge to a reference electrode in the extracellular fluid. The...
The Resting Membrane Potential
Resting Potential Decay
At rest, the K+ is the main ion that moves across the membrane...

