Towards Single-Electron Resolution in Electrochemistry

Single-entity electrochemistry is an emerging electrochemical technique aimed at studying individual entities, such as cells, enzymes, or molecules, electrochemically.

A key aspiration of single-entity electrochemistry is the tracking of single electron transfer events, a milestone yet to be achieved by electrochemical methods.

The goal of this proposal is to push the limits of detection in electrochemical methods down to a few electrons and ideally down to a single electron.

This will be achieved by developing innovative ultrasensitive measuring setups based on electrochemical tunnel junctions.

Specifically, we will develop methods for the reproducible construction of electrochemical tunnel junctions, experimental setups, and data analysis approaches for the detection of electron transfer events with the tunnel junctions.

We aim to demonstrate the applicability of the developed method for the investigation of electron transfer kinetics in small redox molecules, studies of redox proteins, and electrochemical sensing. We refer to these measurements as single-electron electrochemistry (SinEEtry).

The ability to detect and count single electrons electrochemically is expected to enable breakthroughs and discoveries in a variety of fields, akin to advances made with single photon detection methods.