Display of flexibility

摘要

As far as theii electrical properties are concerned, the long, cylindrical carbon molecules known as carbon nanotubes are notoriously Janus-faced: picking out a nanotube from a newly fabricated batch, one cannot know whether it will be a conductor oran insulator. In principle, both types are useful, and the basic transport, mechanical and optical properties of each kind are more or less known, But not knowing how to tune the synthesis to yield just one type is a considerable handicap to the use of nanotubes as, for example, components in integrated circuits. Because of this, attention has concentrated on applications for which this uncertainty is irrelevant: nanoswitches, motors, actuators and yarns for composite mater ials, to name but a few.