Press Release

***** For immediate use April 7, 1997

Leading NEC researcher to lecture at The Royal Institution of Great Britain

Dr. Sumio Iijima

Carbon Nanotubes

Dr. Sumio Iijima, Senior Research Fellow at NEC Corporation's (NEC's) Research and Development Group and discoverer of Carbon Nanotubes, has been invited to lecture as part of the Friday Evening Discourse program at The Royal Institution of Great Britain, on May 9.

Established by Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson) under Royal Charter in 1799, The Royal Institution is the oldest independent research establishment in the world. It is both a world class center of scientific research and a pioneer in the popularization of science, and has been home to some of the great scientists of the last 200 years.

The Friday Evening Discourse program hosted by The Royal Institution, began in conjunction with The Institution's famous Christmas Lectures in 1826 as an effort by Michael Faraday to open science to a wider audience. Approximately twenty Friday evening lectures are conducted per year by world authorities in their respective fields.

Dr. Sumio Iijima's invitation to lecture to The Royal Institution is only the fifth to a Japanese researcher, and is recognition of his leading efforts in the field of carbon nanotube research. Inspired by the discovery of fullerenes (for which the 1996 Nobel chemistry was awarded), Dr. Iijima discovered tiny tubules with a diameter as small as 0.8 nanometers, now known as carbon nanotubes. By further discovering a technique to insert metal into the hollow of carbon nanotubes, Dr. Iijima created what could be the tiniest wire ever made and has attracted considerable attention from the scientific community.

This tubular structure, which is rare outside biological microstructures such as microtubules, is comprised of a sheet of carbon atoms in a honeycomb arrangement, which is the basic structure of graphite. It involves the unique feature of helicity among others, in which carbon hexagons are arranged in a helical fashion on the tubule wall. Unlike conventional graphite, the carbon nanotube is expected to be semiconductive or metallic, depending upon helicity and diameter. What is more, is that with the size of carbon nanotubes being close to that of a single molecule, research is close to the ultimate goal of modern micro-electronics device technology, where the devices are constantly shrinking in size.

In conducting his research into carbon nanotubes, Dr. Iijima has also helped develop electron microscopy, a powerful and essential means of exploring the nanostructure world at atomic scale resolution and even in real time motion.

In his lecture, "Carbon nanotubes -The tiniest man-made tubes", Dr. Iijima plans to illustrate how tiny atomic scale worlds seen under the modern electron microscope are similar to bamboo baskets, and the lessons these baskets hold for understanding this field. He will also show how carbon nanotubes were discovered, why scientists are so excited about the nanotubes, and what the future is of such small tubules.

For Outline of Biography of Dr.Sumio Iijima, please see the attached sheet.

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