You can quickly tell the chirality of a carbon nanotube with an electrical measurement.  No messy preparation and imaging with a scanning electron microscope.  Who has the time to do that?  Simply connect up a semiconductor analyzer, vary the voltage and watch the resulting current.  The IV curve of a semiconductor nanotube will look like a transistor while the IV curve of a superconductor nanotube will look like a resistor.

The real key to these measurements is a stable low-voltage and low-current measurement capability.   Typically this means measurement resolutions of < 1 fA and voltage resolution of 0.5 uV.  Professor K. Matsumoto of Osaka University has used Agilent’s semiconductor parameter analyzer with success to check chirality.   Learn more about this measurement by reading Application Note B1500-1 found at http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5989-2842EN.pdf

What other measurements are you making on carbon nanotubes?

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