News Materials Science

Gripping Tale: Metal oozes in nanotubes’ grasp

By Peter Weiss

- More than 2 years ago

Chalk up another feat of astounding strength for the hollow threads called carbon nanotubes. When they squeeze in on enclosed crystals of hard metals, those substances collapse into thin shafts, an international team of scientists reports.

SQUEEZE PLAY. Time-lapse sequence shows a multiwalled carbon nanotube (seen in cross section as two bands of thin lines) compressing into a thin shaft the end of a rod-shaped nanocrystal of iron carbide (black bar labeled Fe3C).