Chapter 31 - Carbon Nanotube Wire for Use in Precision Medical Devices: Micro and Nano Technologies

Carbon nanotube (CNT) technology is improving around the world to the point where new types of devices can be made. Spinning millimeter-length CNT into yarn and drawing ribbon and twisting into yarn have been demonstrated, and the yarn is being used as electric and thermal conductors. It is also becoming feasible to use carbon nanotube hybrid conductive tapes and yarn to make tiny electromechanical components such as wires, coils, transformers, and electric motors. These components further enable the manufacturing of precision medical devices, such as biomedical wires, sensors, actuators, manipulators, and millirobots for minimally invasive in vivo diagnosis and treatment. Precision biomedical microdevices promise to improve disease diagnosis and treatment, improve health-care delivery, and spur novel medical system development. Treatments for heart disease, cancer, neural repair, drug delivery, probing, reconstruction, and healing might be advanced using miniature precision devices. The concept of CNT-based precision medical devices is a new area of research, and the state of the art in their development and potential applications are discussed in this chapter.