SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project involves the fabrication of a nanoelectronic device research module or kit for use by educational institutions and private sector researchers. The nanoelectronic devices will be used as transducer components in chemical, biological and photonic sensors. The kit will have three components: 1) packaged nanotube based field effect transistors (NTFETs); 2) a functionalization test board (FTB) for testing the devices; and, 3) a data acquisition system by which the users control the FTB. The NTFET development will require refinement of the production of reproducible nanotube array devices on 4" silicon wafers. The proposed work involves extending semiconductor manufacturing to produce 1 nm objects with the attendant challenges of imaging, measurement and process control. The project will optimize the major variables important to the uniform growth of arrays of single-wall carbon nanotubes with the electronic properties necessary for sensor transduction. The work will explore FET geometries and will develop tools and software for nanotube device characterization. The commercial application of this project is a research tool for the electronics market. The impact of the proposed work lies in its potential long-term contribution to the $300 billion electronics industry. Advances in silicon electronics have been driven by reductions in the feature size on the silicon chips. To extend the reach of Moore's Law, nanotubes offer the best path. The transition from silicon electronics to molecular electronics will be facilitated by the introduction of carbon nanotubes into hybrid architectures based on silicon substrates. Commercial availability of the NTFET kit would allow many component makers to study molecular electronic interactions and develop proprietary formulations for NTFET-based sensors. In addition, the academic community will be provided with inexpensive access to a technology with a very high barrier to entry

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to design and develop a molecular nano-sensor platform for researchers developing new chemical and bio-sensors. The principal component of these devices will be an array of single-wall carbon nanotube transducers on a silicon chip. The product itself will be a sensor development kit comprised of a set of sensor chips, an electronics module with a standard PC interface, adaptors for gas and liquid sensing, data reduction and analysis software, and directions for product use. General guidelines for the additional of specialized functionalization chemistry and biology to the sensor chip will be included. The project objectives include developing a set of 5-10 different chip architectures for gas, liquid and biosensing together with modules for sensing in both gases and liquids. The CMOS mask design will include as many as ten different architectures suitable for different types of experiments and functionalization layers. The sensor chips themselves will be manufactured on 4-inch silicon wafers and set into a standard CERDIP package that fits into the top of the electronics module. Signal processing electronics and software systems will be designed and integrated to deliver digital sensor output to LabView(TM) on a PC. The research involved in meeting these goals encompasses the design, prototyping and experimental testing of each component of the development platform. At the culmination of Phase II, the molecular nano-sensing platform will be validated by collaborative users in UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Irvine, and positioned for market introduction. Commercially this novel nanosensing platform will enable research and product development in molecular level phenomena related to chemical reactions and catalysis, chemical and biological sensing, and photonics. The work described in this proposal will produce a valuable new nanoelectronics research tool that will ultimately result in new discoveries and products in sensing and diagnostics. Researchers seeking to develop new direct electronic detection sensing applications and conduct charge transfer experiments at the molecular level lack a robust, inexpensive experimental platform. In most cases researchers must develop their own experimental apparatus, interfaces and software. For those wishing to take advantage of the sensitivity and flexibility of nanoelectronic arrays, fabricating the devices is a formidable and cost prohibitive challenge. This project seeks to provide a state-of-the-art nanotechnology-based solution in an ultra sensitive and flexible detection platform