Incorporation of single-walled carbon nanotubes into functional sensor applications

Due to their extreme sensitivity to surface adsorption events, there has been great interest in incorporating single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) into sensing devices. However, a practical sensor needs to have selective response in addition to sensitivity. Therefore, recent efforts have focused on efforts to increase selectivity in SWNT sensors. This manuscript article presents recent progress toward incorporation of SWNTs into enhanced sensor and electronic applications. SWNTs are a nanometer-scale material with properties that have made them the focus of research for a variety of electronic applications. Particularly, SWNT gas sensors have received significant interest of late. Electrical transducers based on monitoring the change in conductance or threshold voltage of SWNT devices upon exposure to an analyte have the advantage of being small, simple and low power devices.