Latest Carbon nanotube Stories

Carbon nanotubes "” those tiny particles poised to revolutionize electronics, medicine, and other areas "” are much bigger in the strength department than anyone ever thought, scientists are reporting. New studies on the strength of these submicroscopic cylinders of carbon indicate that on an ounce-for-ounce basis they are at least 117 times stronger than steel and 30 times stronger than Kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests and other products. The findings, which could expand...

Strain-gatingResearchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new class of electronic logic device in which current is switched by an electric field generated by the application of mechanical strain to zinc oxide nanowires.The devices, which include transistors and diodes, could be used in nanometer-scale robotics, nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS), micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and microfluidic devices. The mechanical action used to initiate the strain could...

Speakers made from carbon nanotube sheets that are a fraction of the width of a human hair can both generate sound and cancel out noise -- properties ideal for submarine sonar to probe the ocean depths and make subs invisible to enemies. That's the topic of a report on these "nanotube speakers," which appears in ACS' Nano Letters, a monthly journal.Ali Aliev and colleagues explain that thin films of nanotubes can generate sound waves via a thermoacoustic effect. Every time that an...

Nanocrystal conductors could lead to massive, robust 3-D storageRice University scientists have created the first two-terminal memory chips that use only silicon, one of the most common substances on the planet, in a way that should be easily adaptable to nanoelectronic manufacturing techniques and promises to extend the limits of miniaturization subject to Moore's Law.Last year, researchers in the lab of Rice Professor James Tour showed how electrical current could repeatedly break and...

By dipping plain cotton cloth in a high-tech broth full of silver nanowires and carbon nanotubes, Stanford researchers have developed a new high-speed, low-cost filter that could easily be implemented to purify water in the developing world.Instead of physically trapping bacteria as most existing filters do, the new filter lets them flow on through with the water. But by the time the pathogens have passed through, they have also passed on, because the device kills them with an electrical...

Building on an enzyme found in nature, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have created a nanoscale coating for surgical equipment, hospital walls, and other surfaces which safely eradicates methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the bacteria responsible for antibiotic resistant infections."We're building on nature," said Jonathan S. Dordick, the Howard P. Isermann Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and director of Rensselaer's Center for Biotechnology...

Subjected to a 3-point stretch, graphene develops bubbles of quantized electronsGraphene, a sheet of pure carbon heralded as a possible replacement for silicon-based semiconductors, has been found to have a unique and amazing property that could make it even more suitable for future electronic devices.Physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have found that when graphene is stretched in a specific way it sprouts nanobubbles in...

Hexagonal boron nitride sheets may help graphene supplant siliconWhat researchers might call "white graphene" may be the perfect sidekick for the real thing as a new era unfolds in nanoscale electronics.But single-atom-thick layers of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), the material under intense study at Rice University's world-class Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, are likely to find some macro applications as well.Researchers in the lab of Pulickel Ajayan,...

Drug delivery techniqueUsing chemical "nanoblasts" that punch tiny holes in the protective membranes of cells, researchers have demonstrated a new technique for getting therapeutic small molecules, proteins and DNA directly into living cells.Carbon nanoparticles activated by bursts of laser light trigger the tiny blasts, which open holes in cell membranes just long enough to admit therapeutic agents contained in the surrounding fluid. By adjusting laser exposure, the researchers...

Nanotechnology refers to a broad range of tools, techniques and applications that simply involve particles on the approximate size scale of a few to hundreds of nanometers in diameter. Particles of this size have some unique physicochemical and surface properties that lend themselves to novel uses. Indeed, advocates of nanotechnology suggest that this area of research could contribute to solutions for some of the major problems we face on the global scale such as ensuring a supply of safe...