Cadmium arachidate-single walled carbon nanotubes composites as sensitive coatings for high sensitivity fiber optic chemo-sensors - art. no. 66191P

In this work, the feasibility to exploit optoelectronic chemo-sensors based on cadmium arachidate (CdA)/single-walledcarbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) composites for detection of chemical pollutants both in air and water environments has,been investigated. The nanocomposite sensing layers have been transferred upon the distal end of standard optical fibers by the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique. Single wavelength reflectance measurements (lambda= 13 10 nm) have been carried ut to monitor chemicals concentration through changes in the optical length of the Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity induced by the interaction of the sensitive layer with the analyte molecules. The preliminary experimental results evidence the good potentiality of these fiber optic nanosensors to detect toluene and xylene at ppm level both in air and water environments at room temperature.