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New research shows promise in making nanotubes more manufacturable |
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Nov 01, 2006 at 12:00 PM |
Although carbon nanotubes may be one of the most promising technologies for extending CMOS and could play a key role in post-CMOS circuitry, a rather large stumbling block has been how to make CNTs production-worthy on a large scale.
A news story by Kevin Bullis in Monday's "Emerging Technologies" e-newsletter from Technology Review describes a possible breakthrough in the CNT research arena that could help bring the nanostructures closer to industrial-level manufacturability.
The TR story reports on the findings of a Northwestern University team, recently published in the new journal, Nature Nanotechnology, in an article titled "Sorting carbon nanotubes by electronic structure using density differentiation." Bullis says the researchers "have developed a reliable and potentially practical way to sort through this mess [of varying electronic properties], segregating nanotubes into precisely the types needed for high-performance electronics." He goes on to say that "the new process separates metallic and semiconducting nanotubes. It also segregates them by diameter (another important parameter for reliable computer chips) and eliminates contaminants, such as other forms of carbon."
Although the scientists have yet to prove their techniques are effectively scaleable, they have made simple transistors and transparent thin films using the new methods. But we've heard about CNT "breakthroughs" many times before, so we'll have to wait and see just how revolutionary the Northwestern team's work is in the long run.
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