Carbon nanomaterial based sensors for astrobiology exploration

Carbon nanomaterials are emerging as popular platforms for the development of advanced sensor technologies. This paper reports fabrication, characterization, and testing of carbon nanomaterial based sensors for astrobiology exploration. Development of nanostructured sensor instruments and associated sensor electronics are designed to implement a prototype sensor instrument in “lab-in-a-teacup” platform. The prototype nanostructured sensors consisting of vertically aligned carbon nanofibers (VACNF) are capable of providing a basis for small volume electroanalyses in probing regions elevated above the planar substrate. In addition, the sensor probes demonstrate excellent sensitivity and fast response time which can potentially extend the application of these probes in various electrochemical sensor systems. The prototype sensors instrument incorporates massively parallel electrochemical sensing devices capable of investigating life in either terrestrial or extraterrestrial environment.