There have been only a few revelations in the last century that catapulted technology leaps and bounds over where it was previously. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have just made a breakthrough. For decades scientists have been trying to harness the power of carbon nanotubes. These tubes can be up to a single carbon atom thick and have the ability to carry currents faster than silicon can. Unfortunately due to technological restraints we have failed to realize the full potential of carbon nanotubes. Associate Professor Michael Arnold and graduate student Gerald Brady just published a paper outlining the results of their research. They managed to conduct a current 1.9x faster than the most state of the art silicon contemporary.

That might be great but what that means for the average consumer means computers and smartphones that are much more powerful, can communicate wirelessly much faster, and can consume much less power. Basically everything the current consumer is looking for when they want the latest and greatest hardware. “There has been a lot of hype about carbon nanotubes that hasn’t been realized, and that has kind of soured many people’s outlook,” says Arnold. “But we think the hype is deserved. It has just taken decades of work for the materials science to catch up and allow us to effectively harness these materials.” The researchers are confident that this proof of concept will spur others to work with the technology making it even better and cheap enough that in the future it’ll be incorporated into everyday technology.