Reversible Control of Carbon Nanotube Aggregation for a Glucose Affinity Sensor

摘要

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) have garnered much interest as sensing elements[1–6] owing to their quasione dimensional electronic structure,which renders themsensitive to surface adsorption events.[7,8] The majority of studies have been based on SWNT field effect transistors;[4–6,9–11] however,recently we demonstrated that SWNT near-infrared (NIR) photoluminescence (PL) can be used in the selective detection of small molecules[1,2] and nucleic acids.[3] Although most conventional fluorophores fluoresce in the visible range where tissue and biological media emit a strong autofluorescent background[12] and are strongly absorbing[13,14] and scattering,SWNT -PL occurs in the NIR[15] where these complications are minimized. Additionally, SWNT remain photostable, unlike other NIR fluorophores.