Probing Vapor Phase Analytes with Single Walled Carbon Nanotube Biopolymer Hybrid Devices.

Covalent and non-covalent functionalization schemes have been investigated in order to tune the chemical affinity of Single Walled Carbon Nanotube (SWNT) Field Effect Transistors (FET's). Non- covalent means are preferable since they have minimal impact on the electronic structure of pristine nanotubes. We present work involving the non-covalent adsorption of both ss-DNA and ss-RNA strands to SWNT FET's in order to obtain a class of devices that respond electrically to the presence of gaseous odors. ~We present a database representing measurements of hundreds of such devices, involving ten different sequences of ss-DNA, two different sequences of ss-RNA, and five different chemical vapors. We show that these responses are determined by the sequence of the adsorbed species of biopolymer, and we explore the performance limits of these devices.