We are grateful for the support of European Commission through a Marie Curie Career Integration grant which provided an important support mechanism in establishing our research laboratory at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. 

 

In the project, a molecular sensing system based on NEMS has been constructed for the implementation of Inertial Imaging algorithms.

 

The project has contributed to our efforts in developing new analytical techniques for Inertial Imaging, as well as, in the discovery of the electromagnetic analogue of Inertial Imaging which is now supported by an ERC Starting Grant. 

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A patent application has also been filed thanks to the advancements in this project. 

 

Nano-electromechanical Systems (NEMS) are extremely sensitive detectors of physical parameters. In recent years, the applications of NEMS in mass sensing has been gaining importance through demonstrations of mass sensitivities at the single atom levels and mass measurements of single protein molecules. These demonstrations show that is possible to perform sample analysis through NEMS mass measurements (NEMS Mass Spectrometry) especially for physiologically important large molecules and biostructures.

 

However the NEMS literature so far have always treated these large molecules as “point-particles”. Considering the miniaturization trend of NEMS and targeted large molecules, this assumption is no more valid.The project will be the first step for the development of a novel, powerful NEMS sensing tool.