Illustration by Harry Campbell

The carbon nanotubes and semiconductor nanowires that became available to scientists in the 1990s captured my imagination and attracted me to the field now called nanoelectronics. For an inorganic materials chemist like me, these newly discovered tiny building blocks were like Tinkertoys that could potentially be used to make all kinds of gadgets and widgets. The desire to build something, to invent new structures out of them, spoke to me as a chemist, and I've been fascinated by the possibilities of these new nanomaterials ever since.

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