Ab initio study of topological defects in single walled carbon nanotubes and their effect on gas sensing mechanism

Carbon Nanotubes based sensors are gaining popularity due to their high selectivity, sensitivity, fast response and recovery time, low operating temperatures and low power consumption. However, due to a strong sp2 carbon-carbon bonding within CNTs, the interaction between defect free CNT walls and gas molecules had been expected to be relatively weak and consequently, the electronic transport properties of the nanotubes are insensitive to the exposure of CNTs to various gas molecules.