This 1999 book covers all the most important areas of nanotube research, as well as discussing related structures such as carbon nanoparticles and 'inorganic fullerenes'. Carbon nanotubes are molecular-scale carbon fibres with structures related to those of the fullerenes. Since their discovery in 1991, they have captured the imagination of physicists, chemists and materials scientists alike. Physicists have been attracted to them because of their extraordinary electronic properties, chemists because of their potential as 'nano-test-tubes', and materials scientists because of their amazing stiffness, strength and resilience. On a more speculative level, nanotechnologists have considered possible nanotube-based gears and bearings. This was the first single-author book on carbon nanotubes. It will be of interest to chemists, physicists, materials scientists and engineers working on carbon materials and fullerenes from both an academic and industrial background.

Edge structures of thermally treated graphite have been studied by means of atomically resolved high-resolution TEM. The method for the determination of a monolayer or more than one layer graphene sheets is established. A series of tilting experiments proves that the zigzag and armchair edges are mostly closed between adjacent graphene layers, and the number of dangling bonds is therefore minimized. Surprisingly bilayer graphene often exhibits $AA$ stacking and is very hard to distinguish from a single graphene layer. Open edge structures with carbon dangling bonds can be found only in a local area where the closed (folding) edge is partially broken.

A novel supramolecular polymer system, in which the terminal pyrenyl groups of a polyamide intercalate into the chain-folds of a polyimide via electronically-complementary π–π stacking, shows both enhanced mechanical properties relative to those of its individual components and facile healing characteristics as a result of the thermoreversibility of non-covalent interactions.