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Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon. Such cylindrical carbon molecules have novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science. They exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat. Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized.

Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family, which also includes buckyballs. Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape, a nanotube is cylindrical, with at least one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure. Their name is derived from their size, since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few nanometers (approximately 1/50,000th of the width of a human hair), while they can be up to several millimeters in length which gives them a length-to-diameter ratio exceeding 1,000,000 to 1. Nanotubes can be single-walled (SWNTs) or multi-walled (MWNTs) where they are stacked one inside the other like russian dolls.