Wiktionary
n. Any nanostructure, a member of the fullerene family, having graphene layers wrapped into perfect cylinders.
WordNet
n. a fullerene molecule having a cylindirical or toroidal shape [syn: nanotube]
Wikipedia
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. Nanotubes have been constructed with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, significantly larger than for any other material. These cylindrical carbon molecules have unusual properties, which are valuable for nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science and technology. In particular, owing to their extraordinary thermal conductivity and mechanical and electrical properties, carbon nanotubes find applications as additives to various structural materials. For instance, nanotubes form a tiny portion of the material(s) in some (primarily carbon fiber) baseball bats, golf clubs, car parts or damascus steel.
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family. Their name is derived from their long, hollow structure with the walls formed by one-atom-thick sheets of carbon, called graphene. These sheets are rolled at specific and discrete (" chiral") angles, and the combination of the rolling angle and radius decides the nanotube properties; for example, whether the individual nanotube shell is a metal or semiconductor. Nanotubes are categorized as single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs). Individual nanotubes naturally align themselves into "ropes" held together by van der Waals forces, more specifically, pi-stacking.
Applied quantum chemistry, specifically, orbital hybridization best describes chemical bonding in nanotubes. The chemical bonding of nanotubes is composed entirely of sp bonds, similar to those of graphite. These bonds, which are stronger than the sp bonds found in alkanes and diamond, provide nanotubes with their unique strength.
Usage examples of "carbon nanotube".
Just to the south of them, the new Socket was like a titanic concrete bunker, the new elevator cable rising out of it like an elevator cable, standing alone as if in some version of the Indian rope trick, thin and black and straight as a plumb line dropping down from heaven-visible for only a few tall skyscrapers' worth of height, at most-and, given the wreckage they stood in, and the immensity of the volcano's bare rocky peak, as fragile-looking as if it were a single carbon nanotube filament, rather than a bundle of billions of them, and the strongest structure ever made.
The cable stuck out of the ruins like a black line of carbon nanotube fibers.
To oversimplify, a magnetically propelled car rides a carbon nanotube cable from planetside to an orbiting platform, which is anchored on the other end to a captured asteroid.
The principal factory on New Clarke made a cable of carbon nanotube filaments.
There were few other systems that could weave in a carbon nanotube nearly as well and other materials were available.
Along every wall and in various alcoves, all manner of large equipment was stowed: phaser drills, portable tractor beam emitters, cargo-sized pattern enhancers, magnetic grapples, spools of carbon nanotube cable, color-coded drums of lubricants and plasma coolant, and other tools of the S.
The settlers of the three moons had, on their arrival some thirty m-years before, rendered the chondrites and built tent frameworks of carbon nanotube similar to that used in Mars’.