Tangled Nanotubes Ordered Neatly by Bubbles

Filed in archive Materials on June 4, 2007

One of the biggest roadblocks to making nanotubes that can be integrated into electronics is their disorganized, asymmetric nature when synthesized with conventional methods. Putting them in order once they've already been made has proved extremely difficult - until now. Researchers at the University of Hawaii and Harvard found that nanotubes in an epoxy mixture become aligned when the epoxy is formed into a bubble. The mixture is placed on a metal plate with a gas inlet, the gas blows a bubble, and the resulting formation causes the nanotubes to be aligned top-to-bottom on the surface of the bubble, where they can then be neatly harvested. It is not known exactly why they align this way, although surface stress on the bubble may play a role.