Heterogeneous integration of carbon nanotubes and graphene microassemblies for environmental and breath sensing

This paper demonstrates a new paradigm for realization of functional devices on CMOS die/wafer based on nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene, for chemical and biological sensing. This is made possible through a post-CMOS directed assembly approach based on dielectrophoresis (DEP); a low-cost, maskless approach electric-field based technique that is compatible for high throughput assembly of diverse array of nanomaterials. A new paradigm that utilizes CMOS die/wafer as electroactive functional substrates for DEP based assembly of nanomaterials is proposed. The proposed “CMOS for Nanoassembly (C4NA)” approach is an ideal pathway for heterogeneous integration of multiple nanomaterials on the same platform for variety of applications such as nanosensors-on-chip for environmental and biological sensing. We show some preliminary investigations in C4NA approach of single walled carbon nanotubes, DNA-functionalized carbon nanotubes and graphene for sensing of volatile organic compounds in the environment with potential for breath-based biomedical diagnostics.