First nanotubes made of boron nitride

Abstract

For the first time, scientists have synthesized nanotubes made of pure boron nitride. boron nitride nanotubes have electrical properties quite distinct from their carbon nanotube cousins, report Alex Zettl, Marvin L. Cohen, and colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [ Science , 269 , 966 (1995)]. They have created a substance predicted to have highly uniform electrical properties that may be of great use in fabrication of new materials. As an offshoot of fullerene studies, scientists have been fabricating carbon nanotubes for several years. They use a plasma arc discharge, blasting carbon off a graphite anode into neat concentric nanotubes. The astonishing thing is that out of this violence one finds on a cathode just a millimeter away ... billions of nanotubes whose structure is incredibly ordered and perfect says Daniel T. Colbert, a postdoctoral fellow with buckyball codiscoverer Richard E. Smalley at Rice University in Houston. Scientists have speculated about the properties of boro...