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Nature Materials 3, 135 - 136 (2004)
doi:10.1038/nmat1078

Nanotubes: Strong bundles

Pulickel M. Ajayan1 & Florian Banhart2

  1. Pulickel M. Ajayan is at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA. e-mail: ajayan@rpi.edu
  2. Florian Banhart is at the Institut für Physikalische Chemie, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany. e-mail: Banhart@uni-mainz.de


The mechanical properties of nanotube bundles are limited by the sliding of individual nanotubes across each other. Introducing crosslinks between the nanotubes by electron irradiation prevents sliding, and leads to dramatic improvements in strength.

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