abstract: Driven by the curiosity for the secret of life, the effort on sequencing of DNAs and other large biopolymers has never been respited. Advanced from recent sequencing techniques, nanotube and nanopore based sequencing has been attracting much attention. This thesis focuses on the study of first and crucial compartment of the third generation sequencing technique, the capture and translocation of biopolymers, and discuss the advantages and obstacles of two different nanofluidic pathways, nanotubes and nanopores for single molecule capturing and translocation. Carbon nanotubes with its constrained structure, the frictionless inner wall and strong electroosmotic flow, are promising materials for linearly threading DNA and other biopolymers for sequencing. Solid state nanopore on the other hand, is a robust chemical, thermal and mechanical stable nanofluidic device, which has a high capturing rate and, to some extent, good controllable threading ability for DNA and other biomolecules. These two different but similar nanofluidic pathways both provide a good preparation of analyte molecules for the sequencing purpose. In addition, more and more research interests have move onto peptide chains and protein sensing. For proteome is better and more direct indicators for human health, peptide chains and protein sensing have a much wider range of applications on bio-medicine, disease early diagnoses, and etc. A universal peptide chain nanopore sensing technique with universal chemical modification of peptides is discussed in this thesis as well, which unifies the nanopore capturing process for vast varieties of peptides. Obstacles of these nanofluidic pathways are also discussed. In the end of this thesis, a proposal of integration of solid state nanopore and fixed-gap recognition tunneling sequencing technique for a more accurate DNA and peptide readout is discussed, together with some early study work, which gives a new direction for nanopore based sequencing. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Physics 2015

abstract: Single molecule DNA Sequencing technology has been a hot research topic in the recent decades because it holds the promise to sequence a human genome in a fast and affordable way, which will eventually make personalized medicine possible. Single molecule differentiation and DNA translocation control are the two main challenges in all single molecule DNA sequencing methods. In this thesis, I will first introduce DNA sequencing technology development and its application, and then explain the performance and limitation of prior art in detail. Following that, I will show a single molecule DNA base differentiation result obtained in recognition tunneling experiments. Furthermore, I will explain the assembly of a nanofluidic platform for single strand DNA translocation, which holds the promised to be integrated into a single molecule DNA sequencing instrument for DNA translocation control. Taken together, my dissertation research demonstrated the potential of using recognition tunneling techniques to serve as a general readout system for single molecule DNA sequencing application. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Biochemistry 2013