ZAPPING carbon nanotubes with an electric pulse could lead to the development
of new nanoscale computer chips.
Carbon nanotubes are tiny cylinders of carbon that come in two forms,
metallic and semiconducting. The semiconducting kind can be used to form
transistors, but until now it has been impossible to separate the two types.
Now, Phaedon Avouris at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Centre in Yorktown
Heights, New York, reports in Science (vol 292, p 706) that it is
possible to selectively burn away the metallic tubes with an electric pulse,
leaving the semiconducting ones behind.
