Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory

In August, 1999, Rice University opened the Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory (CNL) on the newly rennovated third floor of the Space Sciences building. It was in part of this same space fourteen years earlier that Richard Smalley, Robert Curl and co-workers discovered C₆₀, buckminsterfullerene, or buckyball:

A buckyball

This new form of pure carbon has the shape of a soccer ball, with 60 carbon atoms arranged at the vertices of its 12 pentagonal and 20 hexagonal faces. Buckyball is also the icon of a whole class of hollow carbon molecules known collectively as the fullerenes, and has spawned a whole new branch of frontier research in chemistry, physics, and material science.

In the early 1990s, elongated fullerenes were first observed, resembling long, narrow tubes of carbon. These carbon nanotubes contained either several concentric layers (multi-wall nanotubes) with a hollow core typically 2-3 nm in diameter, or a single layer (single-wall nanotubes) only about 1 nm across. Experimental verification soon followed theoretical predictions that these fullerene nanotubes ought to possess remarkable material properties: mechanical, electrical, thermal, and chemical. Fullerene nanotubes can conduct electricity either like metals, or like semiconductors, depending on their precise molecular structure; they are the stiffest fibers known, and are at least 100 times stronger than steel, while much lighter; and conduct heat as well as diamond. Hundreds of scientific papers have been published on their fundamental properties, and now, increasingly, on exploiting these properties in novel, and in some cases, revolutionary technological applications.

A polymer-wrapped single-walled carbon nanotube

The CNL is dedicated to continued development of carbon-based nanotechnology in general, and fullerene- and nanotube-based nanotechnology in particular. Its main focus is on single-wall fullerene nanotubes, since their very high degree of structural perfection results in superior properties, and this molecular aspect permits their true chemical manipulation. In addition to Prof. Smalley's group, there are seven other groups in three departments at Rice whose activities are partially involved in the CNL. RQI Fellows involved in CNL have included Daniel Colbert, Ken Smith, Carter Kittrell, Robert Hauge, John Margrave, Boris Yakobson, James Tour, Gustavo Scuseria, Anatoly Kolomeisky, and Enrique Barrera.