Think of a computer chip that bends, rather than breaks. That’s the potential of a new study by scientists at Rice University and Los Alamos National Laboratory (Nature Nanotechnology, « Wafer-scale monodomain films of spontaneously aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes »).

Scientists have developed a novel technique to transform symmetrical semiconductor particles into intricately twisted, spiral structures – or chiral materials – producing films with extraordinary light-bending properties.