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(Funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense)
By wrapping a carbon nanotube with a ribbon-like polymer, researchers from Duke University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, were able to create nanotubes that conduct electricity when struck with low-energy light. The approach takes a metallic nanotube, which always lets current through, and transforms it into a semiconducting form that can be switched on and off. The secret lies in special polymers that wind around the nanotube in an orderly spiral, "like wrapping a ribbon around a pencil," said the study’s first author Francesco Mastrocinque.
