Wednesday, August 25, 2010

US Patent 7780918 - Chemical sensor formed from nanotube fabric

http://ip.com/patent/US7780918

Nantero has focused much early effort in a new form of non-volatile memory based on carbon nanotube fabrics. This patent teaches using similar structures in forming a chemical sensor. Claim 1 reads:

1. A sensor platform, comprising

a sensor element comprising a patterned nonwoven nanotube fabric and having an electrical characterization;

a support structure for supporting the sensor element so that it may be exposed to a fluid; and

control circuitry to electrically sense the electrical characterization of the sensor element so that the presence of a corresponding analyte may be detected, wherein the patterned nonwoven nanotube fabric has at least two sides that are substantially parallel to each other and the patterned nonwoven nanotube fabric comprises a plurality of unaligned nanotubes.

Labels: