CARBON NANOTUBE-BASED IONIC DIODE

This work reports the systematic investigation of the design and mechanism of a new type of ionic diode constructed from horizontally-aligned multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with oppositely charged polyelectrolytes decorated at their two entrances. The major design and working parameters of the MWCNT-based ionic diode including the ion channel size, the properties of working fluids, and the quantity and length of charge modification are extensively investigated through numerical simulations and/or experiments. An optimized ionic current rectification (ICR) ratio of 1481.5 was experimentally achieved on the MWCNT-based ionic diode. These results promise potential applications of the MWCNT-based ionic diode in biosensing and biocomputing. As a proof of demonstration, we demonstrated DNA detection for HIV-1 diagnosis on the ionic diode. This work provides a comprehensive understanding of the working principle of the MWCNT-based ionic diodes and will allow rational device design and optimization.