“Rather a special sort of smoke…”

This is courtesy of Akira Tsuchida, team leader of E-T-C.

He sent me a link to a BBC video clip, showing the new 20 GPa nanotube fibers being created, an audio clip giving a short explanation of how it’s done and another audio clip explaining why these are suitable for body armor.

All three clips can be found here.

Thank you Akira!

(The picture thumbnail is a snapshot from the BBC Video clip – click on it for a slightly larger version)

04FEB2008 – Correction.  The best fiber strength was measured at 9 GPa, not 20 GPa as I (and others) initially reported.