JAPAN NANONET BULLETIN - 82nd Issue - October 26, 2006

YOUNG RESEARCHERS’ INTRODUCTION

Reo KOMETANI
Doctoral student of University of Hyogo
Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

Bio nano-tool fabrication by focused-ion-beam chemical vapor deposition

(Issued in Japanese: February 8, 2006)

Bio nano-tools for highly accurate manipulation and analysis of single cells and organelles are very useful and important in clarifying unknown biological phenomena. We propose making tools for three-dimensional (3-D) nano-structure devices towards achieving high functionality. Therefore, we have been studying bio nano-tools with 3-D structures using focused ion beam chemical vapor deposition (FIB-CVD).

Thus far, we have fabricated a bio nano-injector as a nano-tool as shown in Fig. 1. The bio nano-injector has a nozzle with an inner diameter of 220 nm. As a result, injection into an oocyte of Ciona Intestinalis was possible. Mechanical stress on the injection target is reduced by using the bio nano-injector, because the nozzle size is small. In addition, the bio nano-injector is a very useful tool because the shape and size of its tip can be freely adjusted for various functions.

In addition, a filtering tool was developed by using FIB-CVD, as shown in Fig. 2. In recent years, studies, such as those involving biological batteries, which use

Reo KOMETANI

Doctoral student of University of Hyogo Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

2003	Master's course, Graduate School of Science, University of Hyogo
2005	Doctoral course, Graduate School of Science, University of Hyogo Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
e-mail: HomePage

chloroplasts, have been conducted. Therefore, it is important to understand biological mechanisms at the single chloroplast level. A technique to remove a single chloroplast from the plant cell was necessary to research its biological mechanism. It is possible to filter quickly and to capture arbitrarily sized organelles by using the filtering tool. The filtering tool has a nano-net with a wire size of 200 nm to filter the various organelles, and we were able to capture a chloroplast using the filtering tool. This result indicates that single organelle manipulation can be carried out using bio nano-tools fabricated by FIB-CVD.

By using FIB-CVD, we can develop novel nano-tools with high-performance. We want to achieve free and highly accurate manipulation and analysis of a single organelle in a cell by using the bio nano-tool fabricated by FIB-CVD in the near future.

Fig. 1 Bio nano-injector

(a) Scanning ion microscope (SIM) image of the bio nano-injector fabricated by FIB-CVD (b) SIM image of the cross section of the bio nano-injector (c) Optical microscope image of injection into the oocyte of Ciona Intestinalis Large Image

Fig. 2 Filtering tool

(a) Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of the filtering tool fabricated by FIB-CVD
(b) Experiment of the chloroplast capturing by the filtering tool: A. the filtering tool was approached to cell wall surface, B. the filtering tool was shoved into cell using its needle, C. the filtering tool was kept inside the cell for a few seconds to filter organelles, and D. the filtering tool with a chloroplast was pulled out of cell.
(c) SEM image of the filtering tool with a chloroplast after the experiment
Large Image

Relevant papers

Kometani, R., Morita, T., Watanabe, K., Kanda, K., Haruyama, Y.,
Kaito, T., Fujita, J., Ishida, M., Ochiai, Y. & Matsui, S.
Nozzle-Nanostructure Fabrication on Glass Capillary by Focused-Ion-Beam Chemical
Vapor Deposition and Etching
Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., 42, Pt. 1, No. 6B, 4107 - 4110 (2003)
Kometnai, R., Hoshono, T., Kanda, K., Haruyama, Y.,
Kaito, T., Fujita, J., Ishida, M., Ochiai, Y. & Matsui, S.
Three-dimensional high-performance nano-tools fabricated using focused-ion-beam
chemical-vapor-deposition
Nucl. Instr. and Meth. Res. B 232, 362 - 366 (2005)