%0 Journal Article %T Growth and Structure of ZnO Nanorods on a Sub-Micrometer Glass Pipette and Their Application as Intracellular Potentiometric Selective Ion Sensors %A Muhammad H. Asif %A Omer Nur %A Magnus Willander %A Peter Str£¿lfors %A Cecilia Br£¿nnmark %A Fredrik Elinder %A Ulrika H. Englund %A Jun Lu %A Lars Hultman %J Materials %D 2010 %I MDPI AG %R 10.3390/ma3094657 %X This paper presents the growth and structure of ZnO nanorods on a sub-micrometer glass pipette and their application as an intracellular selective ion sensor. Highly oriented, vertical and aligned ZnO nanorods were grown on the tip of a borosilicate glass capillary (0.7 ¦Ìm in diameter) by the low temperature aqueous chemical growth (ACG) technique. The relatively large surface-to-volume ratio of ZnO nanorods makes them attractive for electrochemical sensing. Transmission electron microscopy studies show that ZnO nanorods are single crystals and grow along the crystal¡¯s c-axis. The ZnO nanorods were functionalized with a polymeric membrane for selective intracellular measurements of Na +. The membrane-coated ZnO nanorods exhibited a Na +-dependent electrochemical potential difference versus an Ag/AgCl reference micro-electrode within a wide concentration range from 0.5 mM to 100 mM. The fabrication of functionalized ZnO nanorods paves the way to sense a wide range of biochemical species at the intracellular level. %K ZnO nanorods %K HRTEM %K functionalization %K membrane %K intracellular sensor %U http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/3/9/4657