D. Bouilly and S. Côté. Carbon Nanotube Field-Effect Transistors for Single-Molecule Biophysics. In Handbook of Carbon Nanomaterials (Volumes 11-12) - Carbon Nanotubes in Biomedicine. Editors: D. Heller & M. Kim. 2025.

 

 

Abstract

Field-effect transistors consisting of a single carbon nanotube have been demonstrated as a remarkable platform for single-molecule biophysics experiments, in which an isolated biological macromolecule is tethered to the nanotube. The conformational activity of this biomolecule can then be transduced as fluctuations in the electrical conductance of the nanotube, enabling recording of the kinetics of various biomolecular processes. In this chapter, we first analyze different experimental methods developed to confine the chemical functionalization of a carbon nanotube device to only a single biomolecule. We then examine the mechanisms behind the transduction of biomolecular conformations into electrical signals and the numerical approaches to infer biomolecular dynamics from such electrical signals. Finally, we describe how single-biomolecule-gated carbon nanotube transistors have been applied to investigate various biomolecular systems, including nucleic acid hybridization and folding, enzymatic catalysis, and DNA sequencing.

This content has been updated on 11 September 2025 at 18h31.