One can anticipate even better performance from a nanotube, prone as it is to mechanical distortions. Sharp, conducting nanotube tips could serve as electron guns, lighting up the phosphor layer on flat-panel displays. To become practical, furthermore, this has to be done multiply and reproducibly. The issues of multiplicity and batch fabrication arise as soon as experimental feasibility is demonstrated. Making nanotubes of high quality and in volume is crucial if their properties are to be exploited.
Recent breakthroughs are significant, but better ways of nanotube making are needed.
They may come as a gradual extension of the current methods, or the solution may lie in processes entirely different and unexpected. To challenge biotechnologists, Rod Ruoff from Washington University once tossed out the idea of breeding new spider species that would spin nanotubes on the cheap. Vanguard laboratories around the world seek better solutions, both collaborating and competing with each other. The future of nanotube science is full of surprises, some of them peculiar, some with the actual promise to improve our lot.