Charles Lieber wasn't supposed to end up at Harvard University. The school turned him down for a teaching job 15 years ago, and he still recalls the two-line rejection letter he received. But the young chemist, who never liked doing things the way everyone else did them, finally landed the job four years later. These days Lieber, 43, holds a chair in Harvard's chemistry department. He and his team of 24 graduate students are the world's leaders in building "nanowires," whiskers of semiconductors so thin you could bundle 20 million inside a strand of 2-lb.-test fishing line. There is might in such minuteness. Much as the transistor was the fundamental building block of modern electronics, nanowires could similarly transform the way we live―starting with infinitesimally small sensors that scan the environment for invisible toxins to devices that monitor a diabetic's blood or check a cardiac patient for arrhythmia. They may also be instrumental in the next generation of almost-invisible computational devices, ones so small and cheap they could be woven into your clothes.
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