'Two-faced' bioacids put a new face on carbon nanotube self-assembly

Nanotubes, the tiny honeycomb cylinders of carbon atoms only a few nanometres wide, are perhaps the signature material of modern engineering research, but actually trying to organise the atomic scale rods is notoriously like herding cats. A new study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Rice University, however, offers an inexpensive process that gets nanotubes to obediently line themselves up - that is, self-assemble - in neat rows, more like ducks...

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