A nanopore-containing substrate includes a substrate, a membrane on the substrate, and at least one nanoscale electronic element disposed on or embedded in the membrane. The membrane defines at least one nanopore. The nanoscale electronic element is aligned with one of the nanopores such that a shortest distance between an edge of the nanoscale electronic element and the edge of the nanopore is less than 50 nm. The nanopores may be formed by etching through a dielectric layer using a solution while applying a voltage to the nanoscale electronic element relative to the solution. The nanopore-containing substrate can be used to detect or sequence a biopolymer, such as a nucleic acid. The nanopore-containing substrate may be used with a biopolymer detection and/or sequencing system.

The sensitivity of a graphene gas sensor to a gas analyte molecule may be significantly enhanced using molecular doping, which may be as effective as substitutional doping and more effective than electric-field doping. In particular, the room temperature sensitivity of NO.sub.2-doped graphene to NH.sub.3 was measured to be comparable to the sensitivity of graphene doped with substitutional boron atoms and superior to that of undoped graphene by an order of magnitude. The detection limit for NO.sub.2-doped graphene gas sensors was estimated to be about 200 ppb, which may be improved with extended exposure to NO.sub.2, compared to a detection limit of about 1.4 ppm for undoped graphene. While the stability analysis of NO.sub.2-doped graphene sensors indicates that the doping method may not be completely stable, molecular doping is nevertheless a candidate technique for sensitivity improvement by enhancing the initial carrier concentration.

According to embodiments of the present invention, a method of forming an indium oxide nanowire including copper-based dopants is provided. The method includes providing an indium-based precursor material and a copper-based dopant precursor material, and performing a thermal evaporation process to vapourise the indium-based precursor material and the copper-based dopant precursor material to form an indium oxide nanowire comprising copper-based dopants on a substrate. According to further embodiments of the present invention, an indium oxide nanowire including copper-based dopants and a gas sensor are also provided. According to further embodiments of the present invention, a method of forming a plurality of nanowires including metal phthalocyanine, a nanowire arrangement and a gas sensor are also provided.

Described is a personal device and methods for measuring the concentration of an analyte in a sample of gas. The device and method may utilize a chemically selective sensor element with low power consumption integrated with circuitry that enables wireless communication between the sensor and any suitable personal electronic device such as a smartphone, tablet, or computer. In preferred form, the sensor circuitry relies upon the quantum capacitance effect of graphene as a transduction mechanism. Also in preferred form, the device and method employ the functionalization of the graphene-based sensor to determine the concentration of an analyte in exhaled breath.

In some embodiments, an inverting amplifier includes four electrical circuit elements (or “pixels”), with two pixels used as sensing elements and two pixels used as adjustable resistors for adjusting amplification factor to operate all pixels at the same amplification factor and cancelling out variations from processing. The sensing pixels include a silicon nanowire exposed to liquid or gas medium for sensing, a metal electrode partially open for contact with the medium and used for feeding a high-frequency sinusoidal stimulation in impedance measurements and for sensing properties of the medium, implanted source and drain electrodes connected to the nanowire, and electrical metal contacts attached to the electrodes and connecting the pixel to an electrical circuit. The two compensation pixels include an n-type or p-type silicon nanowire, implanted source and drain electrodes connected to the nanowire, and electrical metal contacts attached to the electrodes and connecting the pixel to an electrical circuit.

An imaging device and method of using is provided that requires no traditional optics but uses an addressable array of vertically oriented carbon nanotubes. The technique relies on the ability to reduce the nearest neighbor spacing between the carbon nanotubes to less than the wavelength of light used in traditional optical microscopes. The nanoscope can have a resolution of less than 100 nm. Electrophoresis deposition can be used to direct the assembly of the carbon nanotubes onto interconnects in an integrated circuit, which could be used to address the array. The device is portable, compact, and does not utilize complicated components. It also derives spatially resolved dielectric and chemical properties of a sample to be imaged.

An apparatus for measuring electrical potentials of a liquid sample includes at least one field effect transistor having a source, a drain, and a gate, a substrate, and at least two intersecting nanowires of semiconductive material arranged on the substrate, each having a source and drain contact as a field effect transistor and a voltage applicator configured to apply a voltage between the respective source and drain contact. The cross section of the two nanowires has a shape of a triangle or a trapezium. A voltage applicator configured to apply a voltage to the substrate are arranged on the substrate. The nanowires are electrically insulated at least against the sample by a dielectric layer along their surface having a layer thickness between 5 and 40 nm, and at least one impurity is arranged in the dielectric layer as a bearing point which is capable of capturing charge carriers.

Integrated circuit (100) comprising a semiconductor substrate (110); an insulating layer (120) over said substrate; an first transistor (140) on said insulating layer, said first transistor comprising an exposed channel region (146) in between a source region (142a, 142b) and a drain region (144); and a voltage waveform generator (150) conductively coupled to the semiconductor substrate for providing the first transistor with a bias voltage during a signal acquisition period, wherein the voltage waveform generator is arranged to generate an alternating bias voltage waveform (300) comprising a periodically increasing amplitude. A sensing apparatus including such an integrated circuit and a sensing method using such an integrated circuit are also disclosed.

Manufacturing of a device to connect at least one nano-object to an external electrical system, comprising a support provided with a semiconducting layer (4) in which the first doped zones (8a, 8b) are formed at a spacing from each other, an external electrical system (SEE) being connectable to the first doped zones, each first doped zone (8a, 8b) being in contact with a second doped zone (12a, 12b) on which a portion of the nano-object is located, the second doped zones (12a, 12b) being separated from each other and with a thickness (e.sub.2) less than the thickness (e.sub.1) of the first doped zones (FIG. 1).

A sensor includes a working electrode in contact with an analyte solution; an amplifier including: a source terminal; a drain terminal; a back gate terminal; and nanowires, each nanowire electrically connecting the source terminal to the drain terminal; and an insulator having a first side and a second side. The working electrode is positioned to the first side of the insulator. The source terminal, the drain terminal, and the nanowires are positioned to the second side of the insulator. The insulator prevents direct electrical contact between the working electrode, the analyte solution and either the source terminal, the drain terminal, or the nanowires. The working electrode is configured such that, when a chemical species is present in the analyte solution, a variation in an electrical field at a location of the nanowires is induced, inducing a corresponding variation in an electrical current between the source terminal and the drain terminal.