Electrochemical modeling and characterization of Voltage Operated Channels in Nano-Bio-Electronics

In this article, the electrical characterization of Voltage Operated ionic Channels (VOCs) in Nano-Bio-Electronics applications is carried out. This is one of the relevant steps towards a multi-physics description of hybrid bio-electronical devices such as bio-chips. Electrochemical ionic transport phenomena are properly modeled by a Poisson- Nernst- Planck partial differential system of nonlinearly coupled equations, while suitable functional iteration techniques for problem decoupling and finite element methods for discretization are proposed and discussed. Extensive numerical simulations of single species VOCs transporting K+ ions are performed to consistently derive an electrical equivalent representation of the channel and to quantitatively describe its interaction with an external measurement device under several working conditions.