Carbon Nanotube Sensors
From 2003 to 2007, I studied biological and chemical sensing with carbon nanotubes in the McEuen Group at Cornell University. Carbon nanotubes are hollow carbon cylinders with diameters around a nanometer and lengths on the order of microns. Their remarkable mechanical and electronic properties rival the best materials known. To learn about how nanotubes are formed, read my "Ask a Scientist" article.
I made carbon nanotube devices at the Cornell Nanoscience Facility (CNF), and then I put them in fluid environments (like salt water) and measured their electrical response to different chemicals and biomolecules. Some of my results with redox-active molecules are published in L. Larrimore et al., "Probing Electrostatic Potentials in Solution with Carbon Nanotube Transistors," Nano Lett., 6, 1329 (2006).
From July to December of 2006, I worked at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany, where I studied the interaction of carbon nanotubes with the amoeba Dictyostelium. When I returned to Cornell, I continued to study the response of nanotubes to living cells in a collaboration with the Lindau group in Applied Physics.
For a brief overview of my work, you can read the article I wrote for the NBTC newsletter.