Gong, YoupinLiu, QingfengWilt, Jamie SamanthaGong, MaogangRen, ShenqiangWu, Judy Z.2015-07-072015-07-072015Gong Y, Liu Q, Wilt JS, Gong M, Ren S, Wu J. Wrapping cytochrome c around single-wall carbon nanotube: engineered nanohybrid building blocks for infrared detection at high quantum efficiency. Scientific Reports. 2015;5:11328. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep11328.https://hdl.handle.net/1808/18196Biomolecule cytochrome c (Cty c), a small molecule of a chain of amino acids with extraordinary electron transport, was helically wrapped around a semiconductive single-wall carbon nanotube (s-SWCNT) to form a molecular building block for uncooled infrared detection with two uniquely designed functionalities: exciton dissociation to free charge carriers at the heterojunction formed on the s-SWCNT/Cty c interface and charge transport along the electron conducting chain of Cty c (acceptor) and hole conducting channel through s-SWCNT (donor). Such a design aims at addressing the long-standing challenges in exciton dissociation and charge transport in an SWCNT network, which have bottlenecked development of photonic SWCNT-based infrared detectors. Using these building blocks, uncooled s-SWCNT/Cyt c thin film infrared detectors were synthesized and shown to have extraordinary photoresponsivity up to 0.77 A W−1 due to a high external quantum efficiency (EQE) in exceeding 90%, which represents a more than two orders of magnitude enhancement than the best previously reported on CNT-based infrared detectors with EQE of only 1.72%. From a broad perspective, this work on novel s-SWCNT/Cyt c nanohybrid infrared detectors has developed a successful platform of engineered carbon nanotube/biomolecule building blocks with superior properties for optoelectronic applications.Article10.1038/srep11328https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2155-9511openAccess