These modern manufactured materials are nanosized tubes made in small but bulk quantities. The diameter of each nanotube is only a few nm whilst the length can be several hundred nm.
The properties of nanotubes are very interesting in that the have differing conduction properties that range from metallic to superconducting depending on the configuration of the carbon atoms. But even more than that, the structural properties are also amazing, offering huge strength from so few atoms.
Carbon nanotubes are finding their way into a myriad of new products from tennis raquets to car bodies. Their use in tennis raquets comes from their lightness and at the sametime strength and in car bodies their conductive properties which better enable paint to be sprayed effectively on plastics.
However perhaps the most interesting uses is in the form of nano electronics and consumer electronics and perhaps ultimately may provide the backbone for a whole range of transistors leading to a new revolution in nano electronics.
