Patent ID: 8494782

Claim:
A method of fabricating a nanopore, the method comprising: heating a hollow cylinder of a pipette material, comprising primarily at least one of quartz glass, aluminosilicate glass and borosilicate glass, by a process comprising use of at least one of a laser, an infrared light source and a heated metal for heating one or more locations on the cylinder for a first time interval, the hollow cylinder having first and second cylinder ends, having a longitudinal axis and having a non-zero initial inner diameter; and applying a machine controlled translation force to translate at least one of the first and second cylinder ends relative to the other of the first and second cylinder ends by a change in end-to-end separation distance no greater than about 2 cm during a second time interval that partly or wholly overlaps the first time interval, in order to encourage the hollow cylinder to separate into at least first and second pipettes, each with a corresponding nanopore, with at least one pore diameter in a range of 1-40 nanometers (nm) and with at least one pore length no greater than about 2 cm.