METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SENSING A TIME VARYING CURRENT PASSING THROUGH AN ION CHANNEL

摘要

A capacitive sensing system (2, 2', 2") is used to measure a time­varying ion current through a channel (50), such as an ion channel or protein pore. Such a capacitive system (2, 2', 2") does not suffer problems of electrode corrosion and, when used with methods to control a build up of ion concentration, allows the use of measurement volumes (10, 20) around the channel (50) with dimensions on a scale of nanometers.