Nanotubes in the clean room.

The article profiles the nanotube research and development of Nantero, formed by former Harvard graduate students, whose projects may soon make their way into electronic memories. Charles M. Lieber, a major figure in nanotechnology, asked one of his graduate students in 1998 to undertake the design of a radically new type of computer memory. It would read and write digital bits with memory elements that measured less than 10 billionths of a meter (10 nanometers). Until then, the student, a German native named Thomas Rueckes, had been spending his time in Lieber's laboratory at Harvard University measuring the electrical and material properties of carbon nanotubes. Many researchers were trying to use nanotubes as wires or components in new transistor designs. Rueckes chose to focus instead on their extraordinary tensile strength and resilience. Until his graduation in 2001, Rueckes continued to develop the concept. As he worked, he realized that nanotubes had more and more to offer. They could, in theory, provide the makings of a universal memory, one that combined the speed of static random-access memory, the low cost of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), and the nonvolatility (instant on operation) of flash memory. Its status as uber-material would also make it a low consumer of electrical power as well as resistant to potentially damaging heat, cold and magnetism. In 2001, Schmergel and Rueckes, along with Brent M. Segal, another former Harvard chemistry doctoral student, formed Nantero. When Nantero had gained confidence with the technology, it began a new round of visits to semiconductor manufacturers. In 2003 LSI Logic, a leading maker of customized chips for the telecommunications, storage and consumer electronics industries, agreed to bring the process for making what Nantero calls nanotube random-access memory (NRAM) into its factory in Gresham, Ore.