Tiny Möbius strip fashioned from carbon nanotube building blocks

Alex Wilkins

A band with a twist on it forms a tiny Möbius strip from a short section of carbon nanotube.

You would think you could slice a carbon tube to get a band. The tubes are small and difficult to manipulate. They can't be cut into cylindrical bands, which are called carbon nanotubes, as a tube of paper might be due to the powerful supramolecular forces.

There is a way to make a carbon belt. A group of scientists at the Institute for Molecular Science in Japan showed they could assemble a collection of smaller units through a series of chemical reactions.

The team has created a strip-shaped carbon belt. Instead of using an even number of repeat units to form the belt, they used an odd number.

The ultimate goal of organic chemistry is to create all possible structures.

After the modified chemical reactions had been carried out, the structure was confirmed to be a Möbius strip using high-resolution spectroscopy.

Nicole Grobert at the University of Oxford says that the carbon Möbius strip could lend itself to other challenges in chemistry and engineering.

The precise application for this Möbius band may not be an obvious one, even for the researchers who have researched it, but if they can extend their magic chemistry to larger systems and achieve ultimate control of larger carbon systems, then you can start.

Nature Synthesis is a journal reference.