A Delicious Bowl of NanoPasta

Filed in archive Materials on May 22, 2007

As carbon nanotubes only made it into the awareness of the wider scientific community in 1991, we're still in the process of probing all their interesting properties. Engineers at UC San Diego and Clemson University have been synthesizing and studying spiraling, bent and helical carbon nanotubes, optimistic about their applications in future electronics. Spiral nanotubes have some beneficial electronic properties their linear cousins don't, and the ubiquity of helical structures in nature (DNA, proteins) is a strong argument for their utility. We still know very little about the specifics of helical nanotubes, however, so more research is underway to characterize them fully, and, one day in the not too distant future, integrate them into electronic devices.