Biotechnology

NASA is looking to biological techniques that are millions of years old to help it develop new materials and nanotechnology for the 21st century. Sponsored by NASA, Jerzy Bernholc, a principal investigator in the microgravity materials science program and a physics professor at North Carolina State University, Bernholc works with very large-scale computations to model carbon molecules as they assemble themselves to form nanotubes. The strongest confirmed material known, nanotubes are much stronger than graphite, a more common material made of carbon, and weigh six times less than steel. Nanotubes have potential uses such as strain gauges, advanced electronic devices, amd batteries. The strength, light weight, and conductive qualities of nanotubes, shown in light blue in this computed electron distribution, make them excellent components of nanoscale devices. One way to conduct electricity to such devices is through contact with aluminum, shown in dark blue.