The family of carbon nanostructures comprises several members, such as fullerenes, nano-onions, nanodots, nanodiamonds, nanohorns, nanotubes, and graphene-based materials. Their unique electronic properties have attracted great interest for their highly innovative potential in nanomedicine. However, hydrophobic nature often requires organic solvents dispersibility processing. In this review, we...

We report here a method to integrate discrete multicomponent assembly into molecular electronic devices. We first functionalize a molecule wired between the ends of a single-walled carbon nanotube so that it can be derivatized with a probe molecule. This probe then binds to a complementary biomolecule to form a noncovalent complex. Each step of chemical functionalization and biological assembly...

We developed membrane voltage nanosensors that are based on inorganic semiconductor nanoparticles. We provide here a feasibility study for their utilization. We use a rationally designed peptide to functionalize the nanosensors, imparting them with the ability to self-insert into a lipid membrane with a desired orientation. Once inserted, these nanosensors could sense membrane potential via the...

Enzyme catalyzed reactions are green alternative approaches to functionalize polymers compared to conventional methods. This technique is especially advantageous due to the high selectivity, high efficiency, milder reaction conditions, and recyclability of enzymes. Selected reactions can be conducted under solventless conditions without the application of metal catalysts. Hence this process is ...

Nanopatterning and functionalizing of graphene is often required to tune or enhance its unique physical properties. However, complex processes are needed to overcome the chemical incompatibilities between the patterning template, the functional small molecules or nanoparticles, and the underlying graphene. We present a block copolymer (BCP)-based supramolecular thin film as a versatile platform...

Ring-opening metathesis catalysis has received little attention as a means to functionalize or crosslink biopolymers in water since the required catalysts are not usually stable under these conditions. However, biopolymer solubility suggests such a procedure. We show that Grubbs 1 and 2 generation catalysts (in emulsion) as well as a water-soluble Hoveyda-Grubbs catalyst can be applied to cross...

We present two novel allyl-based terminating agents that can be used to end-functionalize living polymer chains obtained by ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) using Grubbs' third generation catalyst. Both terminating agents can be easily synthesized and yield ROMP polymers with stable, storable activated ester groups at the chain-end. These end-functionalized ROMP polymers are attrac...

With extremely low material absorption and exceptional surface smoothness, silica-based optical resonators can achieve extremely high cavity quality (Q) factors. However, the intrinsic material limitations of silica (e.g., lack of second order nonlinearity) may limit the potential applications of silica-based high Q resonators. Here we report some results in utilizing layer-by-layer self-assemb...

Pyrene derivatives can absorb onto the surface of carbon nanotubes and graphite particles through pi-pi interactions to functionalize these inorganic building blocks with organic surface moieties. Using single molecule force spectroscopy, we have demonstrated the first direct measurement of the interaction between pyrene and a graphite surface. In particular, we have connected a pyrene molecule...

We present the successful integration of graphene on top of AlN-based solidly mounted resonators (SMRs), using a low temperature CVD process and Ni layers as catalyst. We develop a protocol to functionalize the surface of the resonators that starts with a low damage O2 radical plasma treatment of the surface of the devices that introduces a controlled density of defects on the graphene. Then, E...