Nanotube ID: New signatures aid nanotech progress
Carbon nanotubes have been on researchers’ A list of promising materials for a decade. However, these tiny tubes–each essentially a rolled-up sheet of graphite about a nanometer wide–are a diverse lot. That’s made it tough for scientists to know what kinds of tubes they have in hand, and those with different diameters and structures can have very different properties.
In a step that could alleviate that problem, researchers now have developed a means for rapidly distinguishing among 33 semiconducting varieties of the tiny cylinders. Means to inventory the nanotubes in a diverse sample provide the first step toward sorting them or producing specific types. Supplies of particular tubes, in turn, could speed development of products ranging from electronic displays to spacecraft shells.