Researchers have used nets of carbon nanotubes to print electronic circuits on to thin, flexible sheets of plastic, in yet another example of nanotechnology’s expanding possibilities. The work is a major step towards the development of ‘plastic electronics’, where circuits on light, flexible surfaces could provide a range of products from paper-thin displays to intelligent food packaging and smart clothing [Chemistry World].
Everyone from entrepreneurs to the military is dreaming up applications for flexible electronics: They could be used to make a single-page electronic newspaper, for example, or could be formed into an electronic “skin” that covers an entire airplane, and checks the plane’s surface for cracks. Since the typical silicon-based circuits are too rigid to use in such devices, researchers have been trying out new materials. The other major contender is semiconductors that use organic molecules, but those have been shown to have poor performance and reliability.
Each year, as electronic devices get smaller and capable of performing more outlandish functions, engineers in the back rooms of 
