Monomolecular wire

Monomolecular wire is a type of wire consisting of a single strand of strongly bonded atoms or molecules, like carbon nanotubes.

In science

The process of forming a monatomic silver wire.

Organic molecular wires have been proposed for use in optoelectronics.

Silver is ductile enough to be stretched into a monatomic wire.

In fiction

Monomolecular wire is often used as a weapon in fiction. It has applications in cutting objects and severing adjacent molecules. A similar or identical concept may be called a microfilament wire or, as a weapon, a microfilament whip.

An early example of a substance similar to monomolecular wire is "borazon-tungsten filament" from G. Randall Garrett's "Thin Edge." (Analog, Dec 1963) The main character uses a strand from an asteroid towing-cable to cut jail bars and to booby-trap the door of his room.

Among the first references in fiction to a "monofilament" as such is in John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar (1968), where hobby terrorists deploy this over-the-shelf General Technics product across roads to kill or injure the people passing there. According to Brunner, the monofilament will easily cut through glass, metal and flesh, but in any non-strained structure the molecules will immediately rebond. No harm is done if the cut object is not under mechanical stress.

Monomolecular wire is a plot element in the short story "Johnny Mnemonic" by William Gibson. The assassin following the protagonist has a diamond spindle of monomolecular wire (or filament) implanted in his thumb, the idea being that diamond is also made of a single molecule and thus hard enough to not be cut by a monomolecular wire. The top of a prosthesis, attached to the other side of the wire, was used as a weight and the wire could be used as a whip-like weapon or a garotte.

Monomolecular wire (in the form of wide "tapes" of a "pseudo-one-dimensional modified diamond crystal") is used as the basic building material of the space elevator in Arthur C. Clarke's novel The Fountains of Paradise.