Surface landing of microtubule nanotracks influenced by lithographically patterned channels

Microtubules, which serve as cellular structural components in nature, can be placed within a lithographically patterned channel as engineered nanoscale tracks for bionanotechnology applications. We study the landing behavior of microtubules upon their diffusion onto a kinesin-coated glass surface in the presence of the channel. The influence of channel geometry on the landing rate of microtubules is experimentally characterized using channels with varying width. Additionally, we develop a theoretical model to quantitatively analyze our data by accounting for geometrical constraints due to both the width and height of the channels against the diffusion of the landing microtubules.