FOR the first time, carbon nanotubes have been picked up and moved with a laser beam. The trick may finally offer engineers who want to build microchips based on nanotube components a way to move the diminutive devices into place.
The semiconducting properties of nanotubes – which are just a few nanometres wide and around 100 nanometres long – mean they might one day be used as the basis for low-power, ultra-fast chips. But until now, the only way to position the carbon tubes has been laborious: nudging them around with an expensive instrument called an atomic force microscope.
So David Grier…
