Can Carbon Nanotubes Smell Inert Gas Atoms?
Jerzy Bernholc (Department of Physics, North Carolina State University) Nanoscale science has emerged as a major new interdisciplinary frontier, with the potential for ground-breaking advances in many areas of science and technology. Richard Feynman was the first to recognize its promise in a visionary 1959 lecture, but true progress had to await innovations in experimental techniques and instrumentation. With the development of new atomic and nearly-atomic-resolution growth and measurement techniques, nanoscience has become a high-priority research thrust worldwide, with physics playing one of the central roles. New nanoscale phenomena, materials and devices are being investigated, with the hope for revolutionary breakthroughs. However, experimentation at this scale is still very difficult, highlighting the need for reliable and predictive theory to guide and interpret the experimental advances. At present, it is already possible to predict the properties of “simple” new and artificia
