Carbon nanotubes: Helicity origin and envisioned applications

Abstract

The “Holy Grail” of carbon nanotube (CNT) science is understanding their helicity formation mechanism that could lead to chirality-selective growth enabling the realization of unprecedented applications. This insight may even contribute to understanding of homochirality of life on Earth. Here we analyze current state-of-the-art achievements and persistent fundamental challenges of the helicity-selective growth of CNTs triggered by a recently published new strategy [1] based on the fusion of kinetics analysis with established experimental and theoretical results. Realizing selective growth of CNTs will not only fuel the rapidly emerging area of quantum materials but also development of a new generation of quantum devices.