NANOTECH: Nanotube/AFM-tip progress

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Aug 20 2000 - 07:58:00 MDT


In an interesting academic tour de force, John Cummings, A. Zettl and
Philip G. Collins from Berkeley and LBNL have managed to spin their
work to get simultaneous publications in Science *and* Nature.
(I cannot recall having ever seen this previously).

In Science:
 "Low-Friction Nanoscale Linear Bearing Realized from Multiwall Carbon
 Nanotubes", Science 289(5479):602-604 (28 Jul 2000).
 URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/5479/602

In Nature:
 "Materials: Peeling and sharpening multiwall nanotubes"
  Nature 406(6796):586 (10 Aug 2000).
  URL: http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v406/n6796/full/406586a0_fs.html

The Nature article is more interesting for me because it seems to
suggest that sharpened (few or single-wall) nanotube tips may be produced
using automated sensing procedures and subjected to quality control using
electron microscopy and pattern matching.

The bottom line would appear to be that there is a clear path to the
volume production of atomically precise AFM tips, implying that
parallel or array read/write AFMs should be feasible.

Makes you want to ask -- "What is the sound of one shoe dropping?"

Also worth noting is the fact that the journals involved must *want*
to publish articles in these areas which bodes well for scientists
working in these areas.

Robert



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