Carbon nanotubes, a hot nanotechnology with many potential uses, may find their quickest application in the next generation of standards for optical power measurements, US scientists said Wednesday.

A paper, to be published by the journal Applied Optics, said researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have made prototype pyroelectric detectors coated with carbon nanotubes, which may improve the detectors' thermal conductivity and resistance to laser damage.

Pyroelectric detectors and other thermal detectors are the basis for all primary standards used to ensure that laser power and energy measurements are traceable to fundamental units.

The carbon nanotube coating absorbs laser light and converts it to heat, which is conducted to a detector underneath made of pyroelectric material. The detector's rise in temperature generates a current, which is measured to determine the power of the laser.

Carbon nanotubes, tiny cylinders made of carbon atoms, conduct heat hundreds of times better than today's detector coating materials. Besides, they are resistant to laser damage and, because of their texture and crystal properties, absorb light efficiently.

The technology is essential for laser systems used in manufacturing, medicine, communications, lithography, space-based sensors and other fields, the paper said. The scientists also hope that the nanotubes' resistance to aging and hardening will allow them to extend the range of laser power standards to ultraviolet wavelengths, which would support the development and calibration of sensors for detecting chemical and biological weapons.

The group, the first to demonstrate the use of an airbrush technique to apply carbon nanotubes to a thermal detector, is now measuring the optical and thermal properties of various tube compositions and topologies, using an unusual approach that is much faster than conventional ones.