Credit: Image courtesy of Weilu Gao, Rice University
A) Metal contacts (gold regions) connect to highly aligned carbon nanotube patterned films (red strips) to allow voltage control of their electrical properties. B) A close-up image of the films shows the high degree of carbon nanotube alignment. C) The cross section of the film shows the nanotubes are densely packed having about 1 million tubes per square micron (~1/10,000th the cross-sectional area of a human hair).