Concentration dependence of nanochannel impedance and the determination of surface charge

In this paper, we demonstrate the variation of nanochannel impedance with bulk (reservoir) electrolyte concentration. The impedance of a nanochannel is shown to correspond to a characteristic deformed semicircular arc. The degree of deformation decreases with increasing concentration, and at a sufficiently low concentration the complex impedance saturates, becoming essentially independent of the reservoir concentration. This behavior is indicative of a surface-conduction dominant regime. Here we demonstrate that this effect extends beyond dc conductance and affects the ac response of the system as well, including both phase relationship and magnitude. The nanochannel resistance, obtained from low-voltage ac measurements, is then used to extract the nanochannel surface charge density. This is found to increase in magnitude with increasing electrolyte concentration.