DNA, a molecule famous for storing the genetic blueprints for all living things, can do other things as well. In a paper due to be published in the Journal of American Chemical Society, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) describe how tailored single strands of DNA can be used to purify the highly desired “armchair” form of carbon nanotubes. Armchair-form, single-wall carbon nanotubes are needed to make “quantum wires” for low-loss, long-distance electricity transmission and wiring.

Single-wall carbon nanotubes are usually about a nanometer in diameter, but they can be millions of nanometers in length. It’s as if you took a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms, arranged in a hexagonal pattern, and curled it into a cylinder, like rolling up a piece of chicken wire.

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