Abstract
One of the reason why silicon-based semiconductor technologies were revolutionary is the ease of controlling the properties and functions. Silicon is naturally abundant as well, and there was no maldistribution of the material.
Carbon, on the other hand, is much less abundant (1/1000) compared to silicon. However, it is concentrated in specific locations which makes it easy to mine the material. Carbon atoms can be bonded to each other by either sp, sp2, or sp3 bonding, which lead to various structures compared to silicon with basically sp3 bonding. Owing to the variety of bondings, carbon structure can be controlled to a wide range. Especially nanocarbons with dimensionalities have unique properties which have been attracting lots of interest and has become one of the most active field since the end of 20th century.
In the present article, we will overview the basics of nanocarbons and its variants such as fullerenes, nanotubes, and graphenes. Finally, the applications, health and safety research mainly focusing on carbon nanotubes, will be discussed.
