Superstrong Fiber Made of Carbon Nanotubes

British and U.S. scientists have developed a method to spin superstrong fibers made from carbon nanotubes, BBC News Online reported Thursday.

Discovered in 1991, carbon nanotubes are just a few nanometers, or billionths of a meter, thick, and are potentially hundreds of times stronger than steel. The new method, developed jointly by scientists at Cambridge University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, can turn the microscopic carbon filaments into continuous fiber.

Now, suddenly, one can relate this thing called a nanotube into something people can see, said U.K. team leader Alan Windle.

He said the process resembles the workings of a cotton candy machine, in which a fluffy cloud of fiber is created and then spun on to a spindle as a thread. ]

The fiber is as strong as diamond, the hardest known substance, and scientists think it could lead someday to the construction of space elevators — transports between Earth’s surface and satellites in synchronous orbits thousands of miles high.