Silicon's likely successor and much more

We know you'll have as much fun reading our annual Future Tech issue as we've had reporting it almost as much, anyway.

The technology strides made over the past few decades are note- worthy, but wait until you see what's to come. For this special issue, we've explored the very beginnings of computing's next phase.

The technologies you'll read about in the following pages from carbon nanotube microprocessors and self-driving cars to biosensors and quantum cryptography—are works in progress. Some are little more than sparks of ideas, some are being fine-tuned, and some are waiting in the wings for the right market conditions. Yet they all share something in common: Each holds the promise of transforming computing.

It's the Clark Kent of microelectronics. In the early 1990s, scientists at the NEC Fundamental Research Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan, discovered a tiny graphitelike structure with the most beguiling dual identity. Sometimes it's a metal, and sometimes it's a semiconductor. It can serve as a wire, transporting current from one place to another, and it can also serve as a transistor, using changes in current to store information.
This microscopic structure, known as a carbon nanotube, could be the secret to extending Moore's Law—which predicts that the number of transistors on the fastest CPUs will double every 18 months—beyond the limits of today's silicon microprocessors (quite a feat in itself). "This is our best hope for the next generation of electronics," says Jie Liu, a Duke University chemist at the forefront of carbon nanotube research. It is also the basic building block for all sorts of future products, from flat-panel displays and long-lasting batteries to fishing poles and satellite cables (pound for pound, nanotubes are 10 to 100 times as strong as steel).