Diamond Nanotubes Created

raxxy writes to tell us that researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne Nation Laboratory have taken the next step in nano development. Combining the process for 'growing' diamonds and the latest in carbon nanotubes has given birth to a diamond-nanotube composite. From the article: "Diamond has its drawbacks, however. Diamond is a brittle material and is normally not electrically conducting. Nanotubes, on the other hand, are incredibly strong and are also great electrical conductors, but harnessing these attributes into real materials has proved elusive. By integrating these two novel forms of carbon together at the nanoscale a new material is produced that combines the material properties of both diamond and nanotubes."

You knew it was coming...

[Poromenos1]

Can this be used in the space elevator? Tensile pressure and all?

dupe, or perhaps not?

[eobanb]

This seems very similar to this article [slashdot.org] from just a few days ago, yet I don't think they're the same thing. I'd be interested in seeing a direct comparison of the nanorods and the diamond nanotubes.

I'm unimpressed.

[MAdMaxOr]

Congratulations. You can do vapor deposition of diamonds, and you can do vapor deposition of carbon nanotubes. So can everyone else. You can do them both at the same time? Interesting. Too bad you can't control the process beyond the ratio of nanotube to diamond.

What about average tube length? Alignment? Bonding with the diamond? Anything beyond what you'd get if you mixed extremely fine diamond powder and nanotube powder, mixed and compressed? Guess not.

However "Ultrananocrystalline(tm)" sure sounds cool. Maybe the innovation is in the buzzword.

IHABSCP (I have a B.S. Computational Physics)

Diamond nanotube cartel?

[JourneyExpertApe]

Will these be controlled by an evil diamond nanotube cartel in order to drive up their prices 1000-fold? And then will they bribe their way out of an anti-trust case?

Re:I'm unimpressed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Each step is significant.

Absolutely correct. Even if sometimes it seems obvious or of little interest.

Computational Physics isn't quite like REAL physics, is it? It's easier to do something on a computer than in real life.

On the contrary. It depends which approximations are taken for the model. In nanoscale materials modeling it typically holds that the simpler the model, the less accurate and the less predictive it will be. Obviously, more complex models are usually more accurate but take longer to calculate. As for this particular case, it is quite difficult to realistically map out process parameters.