Stylised images of C60 derivatives with fluorinde and methyl groups attached. The chemical functionality of C60 has the lead to an array of different structures and properties. These may be futuristic representations of chemically modified C60, but these molecules have actually been synthesised...Check out more structures Roger Taylors Functionalised Fullerenes

images created by Chris Ewels

Nanotubes can be understood as a sheet of graphite that is has been rolled up and the two edges 'stitched together'. Depending on how you roll the tube, the properties of the material change - it can switch from being a metallic conductor to a strong insulator.

Play With Nanotubes with this applet, from Ernst Richters' excellent nanotube site ! Check out the different structural motifs when a graphite sheet is rolled along different vectors...even these have different names, is it an armchair roll, a zigzag role or the chiral roll ? The growth of nanotubes in reality is much more complex but in the future it is likely that techniques will exist to control the rolling of graphite sheets into desired structures like for example the stylised "nano-spring" shown here.

The bright lights of single fluorescent dye molecules of tetramethylrhodamine adsorbing and desorbing from a glass coverslip imaged using ultra-sensitive laser based microscopy techniques. Each spot represents the fluorescence from a single dye molecule imaged on a black and white interline CCD chip . In reaility each tetramethylrhodamine dye emits a yellow/orange light too faint to be seen by the eye but not by an intensified camera like those used in night vision systems.The brightness of each spot is quantised but varys with time before the molecule desorbs or photobleaches in a single step. The variation in fluorescence provides a sensitive probe of the nanoenvironment. Learn more about single molecule detection and ultra-sensitive imaging at the Single Molecule Microscopy homepage. Image approx 20x20 um