Experiments

1.09.2005: Growth into templated caps (to produce the negative 3D morphology) has shown to be successful.

John has the carbon nanotube growth rates (for forests) up to ~4mm in 15 minutes.

John just submitted a paper on the growing into caps which also suggests that buckling and mechanical stresses may be a significant reason for growth deactivation

7.21.2005: Total and Absolut

5.23.2005: SEM pics of the 'Fives up to the Sixes' and stitched close-up

3.17.2005: AJH and RW have collaborated to grow custom structures from carbon nanotubes.

The idea is to pattern a blueprint and grow-up from there. We are starting with configuations from the sacred geometry, namely, the Seed of Life:

The SoL pictured above is 2 cm across with 6 smaller versions at the outer intersections. SEM pictures to follow.

Although it would take quite a large oven with the current state of technology, we envision growing structures in the desert from CNTs:

1.07.2005: Anastasios John Hart is growing bundles of carbon nanotubes as part of his Ph.D. research at MIT.

These are structures of exceptionally long vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes --- single carbon molecules composed of graphene sheets that grow as hollow cylinders from metal nanoparticles deposited on a silicon substrate. Each nanotube is only a few billionths of a meter in diameter, meaning that a structure the diameter of a human hair (70 micrometers, roughly twice the diameter of the "bridge" pictured below) contains millions of parallel nanotubes. At these lengths, the aspect ratios of the nanotubes are over 100,000.

"Seeds" of metal nanoparticles are necessary for growing the nanotubes, and the nanotubes grow when the seeds are exposed to a carbon-containing substance (in this case, a mixture of hydrogen, ethylene, and argon gases) at a high temperature. In some cases (e.g. the building and the city block), the pattern of seeds determines the pattern of growth; in other cases, (e.g. the city organic) other factors such as local variations in the supply of carbon cause spontaneous growth of beautiful structures such as the flowers, garden, city organic, bridge, dome, and waterfall.

The carbon nanotube building blocks are one of the strongest molecules known, and at these lengths perhaps also one of the most chemically-ordered molecules yet discovered. Our results suggest that by choosing the right source of carbon and proper growth conditions, these structures can be grown to limitless sizes. -AJH

Growth rates of these tubes are becoming faster as the technology develops. To date, the rate of growth is between 10's to 100's of microns per minute (0.01 to 0.1 mm/min) and the biggest structures to currently reported have been about 2.5 mm. By extrapolation, 10,000 min. (~3 days) could provide strucutres of 1 meter in height. -RW

Building

City Organic

City Block

Bridge

Dome

Flower - example 1

Garden

Parting

Wall

Waterfall

Flower - example 2