Applications of Filled Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes in Biosensors

Applications in the biomedical field require nanomaterials with improved properties. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) filled with nickelocene are a new material for biomedical applications. The SWCNTs are filled with nickelocene using the gas-phase method. It is a very simple and environmentally friendly process that allows us to obtain new materials with high yield [1,2]. This method can be applied to materials for biomedical applications. The nickelocene-filled SWCNTs are obtained as a clean material that can be further characterized with spectroscopy. Indeed, it is known that spectroscopy requires high-quality samples. The spectroscopic samples should be free of impurities from the synthesis process. In this work, an investigation of nickelocene-filled SWCNTs with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) was performed [3]. Nickelocene-filled SWCNTs include metallicity-mixed SWCNTs, i.e., a mixture of metallic and semiconducting SWCNTs. It was shown that the encapsulated nickelocene leads to a donor effect on the SWCNTs. A variation in the Fermi level of the SWCNTs with different measurement angles was revealed. This was related to the modification of the electronic properties of the SWCNTs. The obtained data are important for biomedical applications of filled SWCNTs.

[1] Kharlamova M. V. et al. Nanoscale 2015, 7, 1383-1391.

[2] Kharlamova M. V. et al. Appl. Phys. A 2018, 124, 247.

[3] Kharlamova M. V. et al. Appl. Phys. A 2024, 130, 738.