Carbon nanotubes are smaller than the eye can see, yet stronger than steel.
A readout showed the applied force. New tools, under development in our laboratory for the past several years, have allowed us to manipulate these nanotubes, which have diameters on the order of 10,000 times smaller than a human hair, and lengths of only several microns, onto opposing, tiny cantilevers, or micro-measuring instruments. We video record the entire tensile loading experiment as it takes place inside of a scanning electron microscope. One nanotube is nested inside of another, which is inside of another, and so on. Doing this causes residual hydrocarbon gases in the electron microscope to be decomposed and to build up a small carbonaceous deposit.