Active nanotubes built with gallium nitride

Peidong Yang, a University of California, Berkeley, chemist, has fabricated a new type of nanotube, made of gallium nitride, that, he says, "captures some of the great properties from nanowires and carbon nanotubes, and eliminates the not so good characteristics of both.

"Each of these - semiconductor nanowires, carbon nanotubes and semiconductor nanotubes - will play big role in nanocircuits of the future."

Unlike many other inorganic nanotubes created to date, these nanotubes are perfect single crystals with interesting optical properties that carbon nanotubes don't have. And because it is easy to attach organic molecules to gallium nitride surfaces, the hollow tubes hold promise as chemical sensors.

Gallium nitride also is a material well known in the semiconductor industry, and is used in many optical, high-temperature and high-voltage electronic circuits. Industry's ability to manipulate gallium nitride means that Yang's development paves the way for relatively inexpensive, large-scale production of high-quality, uniform nanotubes.