A carbon nanotube is a honeycomb lattice rolled into a cylinder. The nanotube diameter about 1 nm is
much smaller in size than the most advanced semiconductor devices and thus carbon nanotube brings us
the challenge for new solid state physics. One of the most significant physical properties of carbon
nanotubes is their electronic structure which depends only on their geometry, and is unique to solid state
physics. Specifically, the electronic structure of a single-wall carbon nanotube is either metallic or
semiconducting, depending on its diameter and chirality, and does not requiring any doping. Further, the
energy gap of semiconducting carbon nanotubes can be varied continuously from 1~eV to 0~eV, by
varying the nanotube diameter. Thus we can imagine that the smallest possible semiconductor devices
are likely to be based on carbon nanotubes.
See detail in
"Physical Properties of Carbon Nanotubes",
``Science of Fullerenes and Carbon Nanotubes'', or
The
Nanotube Site at Professor D. Tomanek.
If you want to buy single wall nanotube, please contact to
CarboLex, Inc .
rsaito@ee.uec.ac.jp
C_60 molecule