The Carbon Nanotubes Buzzzz...

My work involves the application and manipulation of nanoscopic structures called Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs). Although their application and superior chemical/electrical/mechanical properties are broad and extensive, they seem to be overly hyped up by the media as the next generation "silicon", as the fact is, the technology will not be readily available to the mass public atleast in another 10 years.

Therefore, labelling it as the "next generation" is quite optimistic and not quite realistic. Not to mention a public missconception. Yes it will be the "next generation" technology eventually, but not the immediate "next" to what we have now, if you get what i mean.

I learn this fact the hard way as usual; The growing and manupulation process of sumthing more than 1000x smaller than your nostril hair is no mundane labour. Plus the current research on electronic application of CNTs are still in the infancy and rudimentary. Most of the publications available now are only surrounding the operation and conceptual applications of CNTs. Performance wise is still ahead of the current view of research.

But then again I feel privileged to to be able to "contribute" to the advancement of CNTs research and be heavily involved in the application developement of these lil SOBs.

I managed to try to grow some CNTs that are supposedly to be straight and well alligned, but all I got was some forest of CNTs intead. They look more like little worms in a grand slam orgy or sumthing. I used a scanning electron microscopy to view it and took these pics:





Well, i have to keep on trying. I will post again once i get to grow some meaningful CNTs. In the meantime, I will be posting more songs of Nevermind The Hazatsu, which is what this blog will be focusing on from now on...