by BabyPeanut » Sat 25 Dec 2004, 09:32:38
ibid.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hen we succeed, the impact on energy technologies may be immense. Running the cloning reactor with arm-chair seeds we should be able to make pounds of all arm-chair buckytubes. Using a process we have been developing for the past few years with support from the Office of Naval Research, we expect to be able to spin these nanotubes into continuous fibers. This process resembles the spinning of Kevlar. But here instead of forming a strong electrical insulator like Kevlar, the all-armchair buckytube fiber will be an electrical conductor. We expect the conductivity to be extremely high, both because of the quantum light-pipe behavior of electrons traveling down individual arm chair buckytubes, and because of facile resonant quantum tunneling of the electron from tube to tube. To get a feeling for this bizarre quantum behavior, imagine you are traveling on a subway train in New York City late at night. You're sleepy and for a moment you nod off. But there is another exactly identical train running parallel to you and when you wake up you are on this other train. So it is when electrons quantum tunnel from tube to tube in these arm-chair quantum wires. Welcome to the amazing world of nanotechnology!