Carbon nanotubes are tiny tubes of just carbon that are about two nanometers wide. But carbon nanotubes are fifty-times stronger than steel. That is because all of the carbon atoms are bound to one another without any breaks. Most stuff breaks because of defects. If you take a wafer (silicon? Nah a vanilla one) it will break along a line of defects in the structure of the cookie. Most times you can’t see them but if you use a powerful electron microscope then you can see these little tiny defects. If the defects are all lined up, then that is a problem because they can then form a break when you apply a stress. Carbon nanotubes free of defects are really strong. Right now scientists don’t know how to make really long carbon nanotubes or how to best glue a lot of them together.
The real challenge is putting things like carbon nanotubes into the materials in a way that they help make the equipment stronger and lighter. Scientists are studying these composites and different ways of bonding the nanometer scale materials into them. You can’t make stuff completely out of carbon nanotubes because we can’t make carbon nanotubes too long (yet), and unless you want to make a nanometer sized golf club, you need other materials in the composite. But someday, scientists will figure this out and use carbon nanotubes to make something really cool, like an elevator to space.
For more information, check out: Babolat and Nanoledge.
