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Nature 450, 486-487 (22 November 2007) | doi:10.1038/450486a; Published online 21 November 2007

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Materials science: Purity rolled up in a tube

Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos1 & Sang-Yong Ju1

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Before carbon nanotubes can fulfil their potential in device applications, better ways must be found to produce pure samples of them. A promising approach involves wrapping them up in a shell of polymer.

Formed simply by rolling up a two-dimensional sheet of graphite (graphene), single-walled carbon nanotubes — SWNTs — are wonder materials of modern materials science. They are phenomenally strong and stiff, and, unusually, are excellent conductors of heat along the tube's axis, yet good thermal insulators across it.

  1. Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos and Sang-Yong Ju are in the Nanomaterials Optoelectronics Laboratory, Polymer Program, Department of Chemistry, Institute of Materials Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-3136, USA.
    Email: papadim@mail.ims.uconn.edu

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