Nanomaterials are the up-and-coming players in materials science and increasingly found in everyday products such as energy devices, photocatalyst and sporting equipment. They are also predicted to play a major future role in electronics and microfabrication fields. The term nanomaterials
usually describe materials of which a single unit ranges in size from 1 to 100 nanometres (nm). A specific nanomaterial called a carbon nanotube is exactly this, a tube made of carbon with a diameter measurable in nanometres. While carbon nanotubes can be further segregated into further subtypes
with varying properties, generally speaking they are among the strongest and stiffest materials known in terms of tensile strength and elasticity. These miniature tubes also have promising electrical and optical properties in that they can operate as semiconductors, thermal conductors or even
be employed for absorption and fluorescence applications. Because of this broad range of useful properties, the design and use of carbon nanotubes for a variety of applications and industries is receiving lots of attention. Professor Takahiro Maruyama, who is based at both the Nanomaterial
Research Centre and the Department of Applied Chemistry, Meijo University in Japan, is leading a team conducting research in this field.
X-ray source improvements for EXAFS measurement on SGIII prototype facility