This is a colour-enhanced image of a collapsed carbon nanotube (CNT) pillar. After the pillar was formed, it was subjected to oxygen plasma treatment (to functionalise each CNT with oxygenated groups and to etch the outer portion of the pillar) and capillography process (to collapse the CNT pillars inward, increasing their packing density). This combination is necessary when the CNT pillars are used as scaffolds for microneedles. These microneedles could be used in a rapid self-administered and painless drug delivery system, replacing hypodermic needles.
Credit: drianus Aria/Caltech/Materials Research Society//Science as Art Competition
Warped Space and Time.
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