Dreams of a hollow future

摘要

Carbon nanotubes have become familiar components in nanotechnology. Nanotubes made from inorganic materials are now on the rise, the latest creation being nanoscale tubes of a complex manganese oxide. Fabricating small structures has long been fashionable in physics. The rationale is that reducing one or more dimensions of a system below some key length scale can change the system's behaviour -- carbon nanotubes are a good example. But nanotubes made from other materials are also proving useful fortechnological applications. In Applied Physics Letters, Levy et al. add to the catalogue with their report of the growth of nanotubes made of a manganese oxide, namely a manganite.