Abstract Submitted to the    NANOTUBE'06 Conference:

Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Chemical Sensors

Peter C. Eklund

Pennsylvania State University

pce3@psu.edu

X. Morphology and Application of Modified Nanotubes

Semiconducting nanowires (SNW) and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) are currently being investigated for a variety of applications as electronic chem/bio sensors. Most of these sensors rely on a perturbation of the nanofilament resistance and/or transconductance induced by the chemical attachment of molecules to be detected. The mechanism by which nanotubes ``sense'' this attachment, be it via physisorption or chemisorption, or by specific chemical binding, remain somewhat obscure in many cases. We begin this presentation with an overview of these sensor devices and what they can do, and indicate how close some of these devices may be to the market place. Next we turn to research performed in my group that has attempted to document the sensitivity of SWNTs to environmental interaction,i.e., to chemisorption and physisorption of vapors, etc., including recently published results that indicate that even gas collisions with the tube wall can be easily detected via the SWNT resistance and thermoelectric power. We close by presenting progress in moving toward a graphene-based chemical sensor. We will present results of fundamental studies made to synthesize atomically thin sp2 carbon films. We are able to produce n-Graphene Layer (nGL) systems on various substrates, where n=1,...,20 layers. This is achieved either by direct mechanical transfer of HOPG to the substrate, or by generating nGL ``rafts'' in solution and depositing them from this suspension. Results of Raman scattering studies on nGLs will be presented that probe the interaction between the graphene layers and their coupling to the substrate.

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