US Patent 7833801 - Free-standing nanowire chemical sensor

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7833801.html

This patent from HP teaches a method of using arrays of vertically oriented metallic or semiconducting nanowires as a high sensitivity chemical sensor. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of detecting the presence of an analyte in a test fluid environment, comprising:

providing a first array of free-standing nanowires that is interactive with an analyte, said first array of free-standing nanowires having individual nanowires that are electrically interactive with one another, said first array of free-standing nanowires being electrically coupled to a chip or computer that is human- or machine-readable;

exposing the first array of free-standing nanowires to a test fluid environment suspected of containing the analyte;

measuring an electrical property provided by the first array of free-standing nanowires upon exposure to the test fluid environment.