Laboratory Grows World Record Length Carbon Nanotube

[phantom power]

(one step closer to the space elevator of my dreams)

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Sept. 13, 2004 -- University of California scientists working at Los Alamos National Laboratory in collaboration with chemists from Duke University have recently grown a world record-length four-centimeter-long, single-wall carbon nanotube.

Single-wall carbon nanotubes have a number of revolutionary uses, including being spun into fibers or yarns that are more than 10 times stronger than any current structural material. In addition to uses in lightweight, high-strength applications, these new long metallic nanotubes also will enable new types of nanoscale electro-mechanical systems such as micro-electric motors, nanoscale diodes, and nanoconducting cable for wiring micro-electronic devices.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/09/040917091336.htm

[T Roosevelt]

1. Wow

As soon as they grow one oh, I don't know, a millionbillion times longer, you'll be set...

[phantom power]

2. The good news is, a composite material should work.

Being able to manufacture individual CNTs at the centimeter-scale should be sufficient. But to my knowledge, nobody has proven that by building a composite with the required tensile strength.

The fact that these are metallic is a bonus. Being able to control the electrical properties of a space elevator will be important.

[Ready4Change]

3. Yah, but...

You'll only be able to launch ships one molecule wide. :P

[T Roosevelt]

4. Damn!

Let's go nanotechnology!

[DrWeird]

5. Consider how many trillions of times longer they've expanded it.

Fullerenes have been around less then twenty years. SWNT even less. A few years ago the longest were only a few microns. So making them a few billion times longer is not a huge stretch of the imagination.

[phantom power]

6. A single-wall CNT is about 1 nanometer wide. So, a 4cm tube is

about 40 million times longer than it is wide. A piece of spagetti with the same proportions would be almost 40 miles long.

[RandomUser]

7. Space elevators would be cool, so would the Diamond age

I wonder if there's any cross-over benefit between research in carbon nano-tube synthesis and diamond synthesis. Both technologies involve molecular rearrangements involving carbon. And as far as I know, both are progressing nicely, with Diamond technologies slightly more mature. But I don't know if researchers on either side are communicating or learning from each other, or whether there's any commonality of research to make such communication worthwhile.

[phantom power]

8. If you're thinking of Neal Stephenson's diamond-age, I'd say

we're pretty far from that. He was assuming the feasibility of a true generalized nano-asssembler. The stuff that we call "nano-tech" today is still much closer to conventional chemistry than it is to molecular assembly.

But it's all good.