Surface–particle interactions control the escape time of a particle from a nanopore-gated nanocavity system: a coarse grained simulation

Abstract

Nanopores and nanocavities are promising single molecule tools for investigating the behavior of individual molecules within confined spaces. For single molecule analysis, the total duration of time the analyte remains within the pore/cavity is highly important. However, this dwell time is ruled by a complex interplay among particle–surface interactions, external forces on the particle and Brownian diffusion, making the prediction of the dwell time challenging. Here, we show how the dwell time of an analyte in a nanocavity that is connected to the external environment by two nanopore gates depends on the sizes of the nanocavity/nanopore, as well as particle–wall interactions. For this purpose, we used a coarse-grained model that allowed us to simulate hundreds of individual analyte trajectories within a nanocavity volume. We found that by increasing the attraction between the particle and the wall, the diffusion process transforms from a usual 3D scenario (repulsive wall) to a 2D motion along the cavity surface (highly attractive wall). This results in a significant reduction of the average dwell time. Additionally, the comparison of our results with existing theories on narrow escape problem allowed us to quantify the reliability of theory derived for ideal conditions to geometries more similar to actual devices.