Unzipping Nanotubes Makes Superfast Electronics

Al writes "Two research groups have found a way to unzip carbon nanotubes to create nanoribbons of graphene — a material that has shown great promise for use as nanoscale transistors, but which has proven difficult to manufacture previously. A team led by James Tour, a professor of chemistry and computer science at Rice University, and another led by Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford University, both figured out ways to slice carbon nanotubes open to create the nanoribbons. The Stanford team was funded by Intel, and the Rice group is in talks with several companies about commercializing their approach."

Comments

Re:It's not hard to find.

[Eric Smith]

Oops, sorry, meant to post it to a different article!

My chemistry is old but...

[Forai]

Isn't it obvious if a molecule is a cylinder cage, and you take out a line... it makes a flat surface?

Re:My chemistry is old but...

[Fwipp]

Yes, but it isn't obvious that it is feasible to do that.

Now for the application

[elashish14]

So now we have a method to bulk-produce graphene; but do we have a way to implement it in devices?

In any case, this is good. Nanowire diameter shouldn't be that hard to manipulate. The more you can manipulate something in synthesis for functional properties, the better it is for application. Look at doping silicon for example.

In any case, I wonder what the lifetime of a graphene-based device would be. Molecular compounds aren't always the most stable. That's one of the main reasons that they are being held back from adoption.

Re:Based on those easy-to-make nanotubes...?

[ChangelingJane]

Other things that will come "in a few years":

- Stereo 3D in the home
- Personalized medicine
- The end of the economic crisis
- Flying cars
- Duke Nukem Forever