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 Carbon
nanotubes, long, thin tubes of carbon, were discovered in 1991 and are unique
for their size, shape, and remarkable physical properties. They can be thought
of as a sheet of graphene (a hexagonal lattice of carbon) rolled into a cylinder
with a diameter of the order 1 nanometer (one billionth of a meter). These
intriguing structures have sparked much excitement in recent years and have
become arguably one of the most widely investigated nanostructures in all the
physical sciences today. However, the importance of nanotube research lies not
only in the new scientific understanding of these remarkable structures, but
from the vast and varied array of commercial technological possibilities. These
include being used as catalysts to improve the efficiency of the next generation
of clean energy fuel cells, as additives to drastically increase the strength of
new plastics and polymers and as replacements for liquid crystals in LCD
displays.
Fig 1 : Illustration of nanotube
geometries for (a) (9,0), (b) (5,5) and (c) (7,3) nanotubes.
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