one of the (many) current problems with nanotubes is that the chirality (twist angle) can't be controlled, and the chirality determines the electronic properties. SWNTs have been shown to have both conducting and semiconducting properties, depending on the chirality. also, i think the guy in africa who claimed to have proven superconducting properties in diamond is somewhat of a crock. i believe he published his results after he retired, and now can't get funding to continue his research. but who knows.
i'd say one of the biggest problems with nanotubes in practical use is that at some point there has to be a contact to the tube, and so far it's been very difficult to get any useful contact to stick to a tube that isn't orders of magnitude larger than the tube itself.
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~smalleyg/Presentations/Pa stPresentFuture.pdf is a decent non-technical introduction to nanotube development (in.pdf) for those interested, and its host page has scads more technical information than i'd want to read at the moment.
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one of the (many) current problems with nanotubes is that the chirality (twist angle) can't be controlled, and the chirality determines the electronic properties. SWNTs have been shown to have both conducting and semiconducting properties, depending on the chirality. also, i think the guy in africa who claimed to have proven superconducting properties in diamond is somewhat of a crock. i believe he published his results after he retired, and now can't get funding to continue his research. but who knows. i'd say one of the biggest problems with nanotubes in practical use is that at some point there has to be a contact to the tube, and so far it's been very difficult to get any useful contact to stick to a tube that isn't orders of magnitude larger than the tube itself. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~smalleyg/Presentations/Pa stPresentFuture.pdf is a decent non-technical introduction to nanotube development (in .pdf) for those interested, and its host page has scads more technical information than i'd want to read at the moment.