Carbon nanotubes have been hailed as a new ?wonder material? whose remarkable strength, durability, and ability to conduct electricity and heat can be exploited for a wide variety of industrial uses. They are made of carbon atoms arranged as flat sheets in hexagons. Now imagine the flat sheets are rolled into slim cylinders, or tubes, whose lengths (measured in micro- or millimeters, or millionths or thousandths of a meter) greatly exceed their width (measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meters). (Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)[back]
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