THE strange structure in the picture may look delicate, but it is made from one of the toughest materials known. It is a foam made of carbon nanotubes, which might one day be used to shock-proof micromachines or sensitive instruments.
The foam was created by accident, when a solvent was used to clean a surface bristling with nanotubes.
The tube-shaped carbon molecules were upright to begin with, but the forces produced when the solvent evaporated drew them together, says Ravi Kane, who with colleagues at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, created the foam. The structures are less…
