America’s Premier Nano Engineering Event

The 2007 NASA Tech Briefs National Nano Engineering Conference (NNEC), to be held November 14-15 at the Boston Marriott Copley Place, is produced for design engineers who want to know what’s real, what’s close, and what might be coming in the world of nanotechnology. The NNEC will help you keep pace with the engineering and technology innovations behind the latest nanotech breakthroughs. Included will be technical presentations and exhibits from companies leading the nanotech industry in application areas such as biomedical, electronics, advanced materials, energy and the environment, and business. You’ll also find networking opportunities, and the expert insight you’ll need to stay ahead of the small-tech curve.

The NNEC also features the presentation of the Nanotech Briefs® Nano 50™ Awards. This year’s third annual awards recognize the top 50 innovators, technologies, and products that have significantly impacted — or are expected to impact — the state of the art in nanotechnology. The Nano 50 will be presented at a special awards dinner held on Wednesday, November 14. For a complete list of 2007 winners, visit here.

A number of this year’s Nano 50 winners will present their award-winning technologies in panel sessions, including those featured here. Visit here for more information and to register for the NNEC.

Carbon Nanotubes Detect Chemical Vapors

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is developing a chemical sensor technology based on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). Dr. Eric Snow is head of the Electronic Materials Branch at the NRL, and is a 2007 Nano 50 winner in the Innovator category.

SWNTs possess many unique properties that make them well suited for the direct electronic detection of trace chemical vapors. These properties include the structure of SWNTs in which every atom is a surface atom. This infinite surface-to-volume ratio produces a high sensitivity to its local chemical environment. SWNTs also exhibit near-ballistic electron transport along the nanotube axis, which provides an efficient electrical conduit to transmit changes in electrical properties caused by the presence of a molecular adsorbate. Finally, the chemically inert graphitic structure of SWNTs provides reliable operation in harsh environments.

But in order to take advantage of these properties, there are a number of technical challenges that must be overcome before one can incorporate SWNTs into a commercial chemical detection system. These include the development of an inexpensive, high-yield fabrication procedure; reduction of 1/f noise; optimization of the electronic transduction mechanism; and providing chemical specificity. Dr. Snow’s presentation will describe the NRL’s approach to addressing each of these issues. He also will provide an update on the NRL’s progress toward developing a SWNT-based vapor detection system for trace levels of toxic industrial chemicals, chemical warfare agents, and explosives.

Learn more about the Naval Research Laboratory’s work in SWNT-based chemical detection sensors from Dr. Snow during the Nanodevice Fabrication Session at 2:00 pm on Wednesday, November 14.