Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
nanocrystals, nanobelts, nanoplatelets, nanofibers, nanorods,
nanowalls, nanoparticles, such as ideal building blocks for emerging
nanoscale sensing devices. The ability to tailor the size and
structure and thus the properties of nanomaterials offers excellent
prospects for designing advanced sensing devices and enhancing the
performance of gas detection.
The detection of chemical and biological species is critical to many
sectors of environmental air pollution control, process monitoring,
healthcare, medical diagnosis, life sciences, food technology,
agriculture, homeland security, safety, automotive, and aerospace
industries. Hence, the development of new sensing microdevices
enabled by emerging nanotechnologies could significantly
impact for practical applications. Chemical microsensors based
on nanostructured materials have been fabricated with high-
performance operations for gas detection [1-11] of hazardous and
toxic analytes and biosensing [12-17].
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have exceptional physical properties
that make them one of the most promising building blocks for
future nanotechnologies. They play a key role in the development
of innovative electronic devices in the fields of ultra-high-sensitivity
chemical sensors, flexible electronics, field emitters, energy sources,
nanoactuators,
micro-electromechanical
systems
(MEMS),
and
nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS).
CNTs are one of the hottest topics in modern physics. The interest
in these objects has been sparked by the exceptional properties
of those nano-sized objects combined with the ease of theoretical
investigations due to the relatively limited number of surface atoms
in CNTs, facilitating
calculations [18-21] in the chemical
interactions between adsorbed gas molecules and nanomaterial.
While the different allotropic forms of carbon (diamond, graphite,
graphene, C
ab initio
molecules, etc.) refer to well-defined structures, the
name “carbon nanotube” encompasses a large variety of different
nano-objects, which differ from each other in terms of diameter,
length, chirality, electronic properties, and number of shells or
walls in the case of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)
[22]. This can be a chance for future applications since different
types of nanotubes can be better suited for different types of use.
For example, semiconducting individual single-wall nanotubes can
serve as chemical nanosensor at high sensitivity, self-heating and
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