Multifunctional carbon nanotube sensors for environmental monitoring

Abstract

As a one dimensional material, a Single-walled Carbon Nanotube (SWNT) is made of a rolled up graphene sheet. With a diameter of 1~2 nm, the SWNTs exhibit many unique properties, such as high aspect ratios, ballistic carrier transport, high mechanical strength and thermal stability. These properties enable SWNTs to have superior performances in various applications including electronics and sensors. SWNT based sensors are extremely sensitive to slight electrostatic changes in their environment and have a fast response where conductance of an SWNT is observed to change in less than 2 sec upon exposure. In addition, SWNT sensors have size advantage over traditional sensors. Hence, SWNTs have been widely explored as active sensing elements for chemical and biomolecule detection.