Nitrogen doped carbon nanomaterials for biosensing applications

Abstract

"The doping of carbon nanostructures with elements such as nitrogen and boron adds useful characteristics to the already remarkable features exhibited by nanocarbons. These new properties can be used for tackling several obstacles encountered for nanotechnology based applications, specially in biotechnology, where biocompatibility and sensitivity are crucial parameters for biosensing applications development. In this thesis work, we report the synthesis of nitrogendoped graphitic nanoribbons, along with their characterization by SEM and TEM. Raman and XPS spectroscopy results are also shown, and electrical characterization results are presented as well. Our results demonstrate how the presence of nitrogen produces novel morphologic, chemical and physical properties on graphitic nanoribbons, which in turn make the nanomaterial a promising candidate for bioelectronics research. Additionaly, we present results of theoretical and experimental research on interactions of doped carbon nanomaterials and biomolecules. Our theoretical findings suggest strong effects of doping on the stability of interactions between graphene and dopamine, whereas our experimental results suggest improved electrical properties for nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes based biodevices when compared with undoped ones. This thesis shows, from theoretical and experimental studies, that doping of carbon nanostructures can be useful for sensing of biomolecules."