The CETC’s annual look at Emerging Technology explored the remarkable
world of carbon nanotubes, which were first discovered in 1991 at the NEC
Research Laboratories in Japan, following the earlier discovery in 1985 of
‘buckyballs’ – molecules consisting of 60 carbon atoms arranged in the
shape of a soccer ball. Since these basic discoveries, much work has gone into
understanding and exploiting the properties of these remarkable structures.
CETC Chairman Dr John Read assembled a panel of 3 speakers, who
brought together various strands of this work to explain the background and what
the future may hold for this technology.
Professor Alan Windle
is a materials scientist at Cambridge University and is a Fellow of
the Royal Society and the
Institute
of
Physics
. His career has spanned metals, polymers
and now nano-based materials. He has an international reputation for his work on
the synthesis, structure and properties of carbon nanotubes. Professor Windle
provided an introduction and history of carbon nanotube development to date,
followed by details of production methods being developed at the Materials
Science Dept at
Cambridge
. Sequences were shown illustrating the “winding” of continuous
filaments of carbon nano-tubes directly from a high temperature pyrolysis
furnace, which if scaled up may lead to the development of a mass production
technique suited to the production of large quantities of nano-tube fibre for
use in high strength materials. The use of such materials to tether satellites
and associated space elevator technology was hinted at… but we must wait a
while to see if such capabilities can ever be realised!
Dr Ken Teo
is a Senior Research Associate in the Dept of Engineering at
Cambridge
University
and a Research Fellow funded by the Royal
Academy of Engineering. He is the author/co-author of 70 papers and 3 patents in
the area of controlled deposition of carbon nanotubes for electronic devices. Dr
Teo focused his talk mainly on electronic devices that were fabricated at
nano-metre scales using carbon nanotubes. This included FETs, optical emitters,
and electron emitters. It was clear from Dr Teo’s talk that the prospects for
continuing the increase in speed and complexity of electronic circuits as
predicted by
Moore
’s law can be realised using carbon nano-tube technology when the
boundaries of existing fabrication processes are reached in the near future.
Some of the devices illustrated are likely to have near term market
applications, as well as being academically fascinating. His distribution of
free
Cambridge
University
nano-tech calendars was greatly appreciated!
Harry Swan
is the Nanomaterials Business Manager for Thomas Swan & Co Ltd. He
joined his great grandfather’s company in 2002 to launch this new business
unit and is thus the fourth generation to work in the business. Thomas Swan
& Co Ltd. began commercial sales of single-wall carbon nanotubes in April
2004, following over 4 years of collaboration with
Cambridge
University
. Harry Swan showed views of
the single wall nanotube production facility now running at Consett, and spoke
of how the market was gradually taking an increasing interest in the materials
being produced. Many large scale players are however waiting for prices to fall,
especially where bulk applications of carbon nanotubes in materials ad
composites are being considered. He was able to pass around the audience a large
sample of “wet” carbon nano-tube sludge, which would retail in current
research markets at a considerable sum.
The key message drawn from our speakers, was that carbon nanotechnology
activity in the
UK
is well established, and that progress is being made in this field such
that real applications are likely to be realised sooner than many of us
expected. There remain considerable mass production and handling challenges, but
these in turn create opportunities for
Cambridge
and
UK
companies to develop new tools and
processes that could allow a world leading sector to emerge.
The Club is very fortunate in benefiting from the sponsorship
of the following organisations:-
There are also other companies who give us generous help with
specific meetings and services.
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