According to Reuters, GE seem to have developed a new device called a carbon nanotube. While this may come as a shock to the many producers of carbon nanotubes, and the tens of thousands of researchers worldwide studying them, it is merely bad reporting rather than a naotechnology land grab.
Buried deep in the article is the key aspect of this technology, GE’s nanotube can both emit and detect light. Phaedon Avouris group at IBM announced the discovery of light emitting nanotubes back in May, and the key advance made by GE is the ability to also detect photons.
The device is actually a diode, a component which allows current to flow in one direction but not the other, as GE’s press release mercifully informs us after wading through some of the more bizare press interpretations of this news. We can only assume that the technical and scientific editors are on holiday. Fortunately the American Institute of Physics sorts out the confusion.
Carbon nanotube producers shouldnt get too excited though, any nanoelectronics applications of nanotubes will be grown in situ, so dont expect that order for ten tons of single walled nanotubes from GE just yet.