despite tremendous advances in the field of microelectronics, the material used in almost all electronic devices is still silicon. This is because no other material has the electrical properties of silicon, combined with the ease with which it can be fabricated into useful circuits. It is also true that the complexity of connections between integrated circuits on a microchip is nowhere near the connections in a biological system like the brain. The trouble is with making connections which are conducting and yet minature enough to fit large numbers on the chip.

Now, researchers at Stanford University, usa , have reported growing ultra thin carbon wires between metal electrodes. These conducting wires may be the first step towards creating circuits. It may also rival the brain in its complexity of connections.

The material used by H Song and his team at Stanford is pure carbon. Carbon-60, the wonder material of the early 1990s, is easily fabricated into nanometer (a billionth of a meter) scale structures like nanotubes. The tubes are very thin