Commercially available single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) tend to aggregate as ropes and bundles during production making them of little use in many scientific and industrial applications. An effective technique for dispersing and solubilizing SWCNTs is required to fully utilize their unique chemical, mechanical, and electrical properties. A severe restriction on any proposed dispersion technique is the ability to disperse without damaging the SWCNTs. This research project is focused on the production of single-stranded oligonucleotides (ODN) associated with SWCNTs (DNA:SWCNT hybrids) dispersed in aqueous solution. A modified purification method is used to remove free DNA from the ODN:SWCNT solution. Electronic and biological sensor applications of the ODN:SWCNT hybrids are being investigated by experiments to pattern a gold substrate. The attachment of ODN:SWCNT hybrids onto a gold substrate is being achieved through substrate modification using electrochemical deposition. Patterning of ODN:SWCNT hybrids can prove to be beneficial in the development of micro electronic circuits and biological sensors.

2007 INAC-NCN Summer Undergraduate Research Intern
Currently a senior in the chemistry program at Purdue Calumet University.

Advisors: Dmitry Zemlyanov, Professor Ronald Reifenberger, Professor Donald Bergstrom, Bridget Hines, and Roya Lahiji.

NASA Institute for Nanoelectronics and Computing and NSF Network for Computating Nanotechnology under NASA grant no. NCC 2-1363 and NSF grant no. EEC-0228390.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Jennifer McDonald (2007), "Oligodeoxyribonucleotide Association with Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes," https://nanohub.org/resources/3009.

1. atomic force microscopy
2. carbon nanotubes
3. DNA/Nucleic Acids
4. nano/bio
5. nanobio applications
6. surfaces
7. SURI
8. undergraduate research
9. X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy