Aligned Carbon Nanotube_Based Chemical Sensors with Highly Improved Sensitivity

 描述（由申请人提供）：基于纳米管的化学传感器是一类新兴的设备，能够检测与人类健康和安全相关的应用中的分析物。目前制造这些器件的方法涉及将碳纳米管引入到表面上，而没有任何方法来促进它们的对齐，因此形成了随机取向的纳米管网络。已知嵌段共聚物，其中两种不同类型的聚合物被拴在一起，组装成良好有序的形态，其可以通过改变每种类型的聚合物的体积分数来改变。这些聚合物的薄膜可以在具有可控尺寸的域的表面上形成。以前，金属已经沉积在嵌段共聚物薄膜上，以优雅的自下而上的方法形成金属纳米线。本研究将探讨单壁碳纳米管（SWCNT）在嵌段共聚物薄膜上的排列方式。这里使用的SWCNT将在纳米管的侧壁和末端上未官能化或官能化。这些器件将由纳米管取代的聚合物薄膜制成，并测试它们感测不同化学分析物的能力。能够检测微量气体和挥发性有机化合物的设备已被证明是重要的，因为它们可以防止人类接触有害化合物。这里提出的研究解决了检测这些类型的分析物的方法，具有来自纳米管网络的高度对齐的提高的灵敏度。 检测双链DNA（dsDNA）的特定序列的存在的类似装置具有广泛用于疾病诊断和生物战剂检测的潜力。虽然已经开发了许多用于检测单链DNA（ssDNA）的传感器，但直接检测天然存在的dsDNA将代表该领域的重大改进。本提案中开发的dsDNA检测器将作为诊断细菌感染莱姆病的工具进行评估，莱姆病来自伯氏疏螺旋体细菌。流行的诊断技术包括鉴定人类宿主对B产生的抗体的存在。burgdorferi。在人类宿主中鉴定细菌dsDNA是诊断莱姆病的更准确的方法，然而目前基于聚合酶链反应（PCR）的方法是昂贵的并且需要大量的预处理。本文提出的基于纳米管的dsDNA检测器将能够直接和准确地识别人血清中dsDNA的特定序列的存在。这可能对莱姆病的诊断有用，因为误诊可能导致严重的长期副作用和高昂的医疗费用。本文提出的检测器将代表快速和准确诊断由细菌感染引起的许多疾病的有力工具。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Nanotube-based chemical sensors are an emerging class of devices that are able to detect analytes for applications related to human health and security. Current methods to fabricate these devices involve the introduction of carbon nanotubes onto a surface without any methods to facilitate their alignment, and thus networks of randomly oriented nanotubes are formed. Block copolymers, where two different types of polymers are tethered together, are known to assemble into well-ordered morphologies which can be changed by varying the volume fraction of each type of polymer. Thin films of these polymers can be formed on a surface with domains of controllable size. Previously, metals have been deposited on block copolymer thin films to form metal nanowires in an elegant, bottom-up approach. The research outlined in this proposal will explore the alignment of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) on block copolymer thin films with well-ordered morphologies. The SWCNTs used here will either be unfunctionalized or functionalized on the nanotube's sidewall and end. Devices will be fabricated from the nanotube-substituted polymer thin films and tested for their ability to sense different chemical analytes. Devices that can sense minuscule amounts of gaseous and volatile organic compounds have proven to be important because they can prevent human exposure to hazardous compounds. The research proposed here addresses ways to detect these types of analytes with improved sensitivity derived from the high alignment of the nanotube networks. Similar devices that detect the presence of specific sequences of double stranded DNA (dsDNA) have the potential to be used extensively for disease diagnosis and biowarfare agent detection. While many sensors for the detection of single stranded DNA (ssDNA) have been developed, the direct detection of naturally occurring dsDNA would represent a major improvement in the field. The dsDNA detector developed in this proposal will be evaluated as a tool for the diagnosis of the bacterial infection, Lyme disease, derived from Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. Popular diagnosis techniques involve identifying the presence of antibodies that the human host raises to B. burgdorferi. The identification of bacterial dsDNA in a human host is a more accurate method to diagnosis Lyme disease, however the current polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods are expensive and require extensive pretreatment. The nanotube-based dsDNA detector proposed here will be able to directly and accurately identify the presence of specific sequences of dsDNA in human blood serum. This could be useful for Lyme disease diagnosis since misdiagnosis can lead to serious long-term side effects and high health care costs. The detector proposed here would represent a powerful tool for the rapid and accurate diagnosis of many diseases caused by bacterial infection.