Nanotube Propels Atoms Into Black-Hole Spiral

Physicists have created something akin to a black hole in their labs.

It's on the atomic scale, that is, very, very small. But it's the first time anything like this has ever been done and the experiment could prompt innovations in nano-sized devices.

Lene Vestergaard Hau, a physicist at Harvard University, and her colleagues cooled atoms to just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Next, they shot the cooled atoms toward a suspended single-walled carbon nanotube they named "Lucy." The nanotube had 300 volts of charge surging through it.

Atoms that came within a micron of the charged nanotube became attracted to it, spiraling around it at faster and faster speeds, maxing out at more than 2,700 miles per hour.

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