(May 29, 2015) Physicists
at the University of Washington have conducted the most precise and controlled
measurements yet of the interaction between the atoms and molecules that
comprise air and the type of carbon surface used in battery electrodes and air
filters — key information for improving those technologies.
A team led by David Cobden, UW professor of physics, used a
carbon nanotube — a seamless, hollow graphite structure a million times thinner
than a drinking straw — acting as a transistor to study what happens when gas
atoms come into contact with the nanotube’s surface. Their findings were
published in May in the journal Nature Physics.