Cryptography

The New Cryptography: Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes – is there anything they can’t do? They’re strong, hard, loaded with unique electrical, thermal, and optical properties, and have been heralded as the secret ingredient in everything from hydrogen storage to space elevators. Now, new research reveals they show promise in improving hardware cryptography.

Due to the semiconductor-like properties of carbon nanotubes, proposals of their application for microchips have been floating around for years. But the difficulty of working with the material, of positioning it in the precise way required for a working processor, and the unpredictable blend of semiconducting and non-conducting tubes made these proposals essentially unworkable.