Simple Casting Technique To Create Ordered Nanocarbons

May 10, 2005 | Source: KurzweilAI

Carnegie Mellon University scientists have harnessed an experimental technology to produce polymer films with long-range-ordered nanostructure and easily convert them into highly ordered “nanocarbon arrays.”

Called zone casting, this technology could revolutionize the way industrial nanoelectronic components are made.

They used “block copolymers,” which are made of long-chain molecules with distinct “blocks” of chemically different repeating units. To create self-assembling nanostructures from block copolymers, they used molecules with blocks that naturally repel one another, like oil and water. Such copolymer strands spontaneously assume energetically favorable structures, like balls, cylinders or sheets.

Carnegie Mellon University news release