Chemical Detection with a Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Capacitor

We show that the capacitance of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) is highly sensitive to a broad class of chemical vapors and that this transduction mechanism can form the basis for a fast, low-power sorption-based chemical sensor. In the presence of a dilute chemical vapor, molecular adsorbate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2005-03, Vol.307 (5717), p.1942-1945
Main Authors: Snow, E. S, Perkins, F. K, Houser, E. J, Badescu, S. C, Reinecke, T. L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Capacitance
Capacitors
Chemistry
Delivery Systems
Design and construction
Electric fields
Electrodes
Exact sciences and technology
Gases, Asphyxiating and poisonous
General and physical chemistry
Materials
Measurement
Molecules
Nanotechnology
Nanotubes
Networks
Organic chemicals
Organic Chemistry
Poisonous gases
Polymers
Reaction Time
Research facilities
Sensors
Solid-gas interface
Surface physical chemistry
Transducers
Vapors
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Summary:We show that the capacitance of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) is highly sensitive to a broad class of chemical vapors and that this transduction mechanism can form the basis for a fast, low-power sorption-based chemical sensor. In the presence of a dilute chemical vapor, molecular adsorbates are polarized by the fringing electric fields radiating from the surface of a SWNT electrode, which causes an increase in its capacitance. We use this effect to construct a high-performance chemical sensor by thinly coating the SWNTs with chemoselective materials that provide a large, class-specific gain to the capacitance response. Such SWNT chemicapacitors are fast, highly sensitive, and completely reversible.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1109128