Pop goes the nanotube

TAKING a snapshot of carbon nanotubes using a flash can make them explode. Pulickel Ajayan and his team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, discovered the phenomenon when photographing a bundle of single-walled carbon nanotubes. “It was a complete accident,” says Ajayan. The black carbon nanotubes absorb light energy more efficiently than they can dissipate it as heat, so the heat builds up rapidly causing them to explode (Science, vol 296, p 705). The group says the phenomenon may lead to new ways of manufacturing nanoscale carbon materials, and even remote-control detonators for small explosive charges.