the principles of the invention the invention is described in connection with such embodiments but the invention is not limited to any embodiment the scope of the invention is limited only by the claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives modifications and equivalents numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention these details are provided for the purpose of example and the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details for the purpose of clarity technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured advances in micro miniaturization within the semiconductor industry in recent years have enabled biotechnologists to begin packing their traditionally bulky sensing tools into smaller and smaller form factors onto so called biochips these chips are essentially miniaturized laboratories that can perform hundreds or thousands of simultaneous biochemical reactions biochips enable researchers to quickly screen large numbers of biological analytes for a variety of purposes from disease diagnosis to detection of bioterrorism agents typically a biochip includes a large array of cells for example a biochip for nucleotide sequencing may contain thousands or millions of single cells in an array each cell includes a molecular complex composed of monomers that make up an oligomeric nanopore and a single strand of dna and anything bound to that single strand of dna the nanopore is a small hole in an electrically insulating membrane that.