Technology update
Apr 11, 2008
Nanotube 'monorail' moves cargo
Researchers in Europe have built a "monorail" from carbon nanotubes that can transport a fleck of metal over a distance of about 800 nm. The metal cargo sits on a 5-nm long nanotube "sleeve" surrounding a much longer nanotube "rail" that is stretched across a trench in a silicon chip. Surprisingly, the team believes the sleeve is driven by lattice vibrations called phonons — rather than electrical interactions, which they originally thought would propel the device.
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