Detecting gases such as nitric oxide (NO) is important to monitor their influences on human and environmental health. Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), which are individual rolls of graphene sheets, are viable components of chemical sensors. They are inexpensive to fabricate, functional at room temperature, and operational at low power. We aim to develop a field-effect transistor (FET) chemical sensor based on covalently functionalized SWCNTs to uniquely sense NO via the modulation of voltage between the transistor’s gate and source . The FET gate voltage will be manipulated to switch the oxidation state of copper (Cu) on the functionalized SWCNT to sense NO seen through a change of induced current (ΔG/G0). NO will bind to the sensor at the Cu (II) state and another gas, such as CO, will bind to the Cu (I) state. We synthesized multiple ligands to covalently functionalize onto the SWCNTs to create selectivity of multiple gases on a single sensor. We observed improved sensitivity to NO in functionalized SWCNT (ΔG/G0 = 20%) over the controls. Furthermore, Cu infusion and covalent functionalization improve the NO sensitivity via the coordinate ion selected as well as steric factors of the ligand. The proposed device will also aid in the future development of other sensors due to the comparable size and compatibility between other nanoelectronics and biological nano-assemblies.

Multimodal carbon nanotube-based sensors with tunable sensitivity for nitric oxide detection

256th National Meeting (2018)

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