ROBOTS could really start to flex their muscles thanks to a new material that, weight-for-weight, is as strong as human muscle fibre yet as stretchy as rubber.
Ray Baughman of the University of Texas at Dallas and colleagues have developed a way to make ribbons of tangled carbon nanotubes. The ribbons more than double in width when a voltage is applied across them, and return to normal once it is removed. Baughman says bundles of such ribbons could act as artificial muscle fibres in a robot, expanding and contracting to create movement.
The team make the ribbons by growing clumps…
