** Nanotubes synthesized hollow carbon molecules and determined their crystal structure for the first time in the soot of arc discharge at NEC, by Japanese researcher Sumio Iijima.
** August — Nanotubes discovered in CVD by Al Harrington and Tom Maganas of Maganas Industries, leading to development of a method to synthesize monomolecular thin film nanotube coatings.
* 1992 – First theoretical predictions of the electronic properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes by groups at Naval Research Laboratory, USA; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and NEC Corporation.
* 1993 – Groups led by Donald S. Bethune at IBM and Sumio Iijima at NEC independently discover single-wall carbon nanotubes and methods to produce them using transition-metal catalysts.
*  1995 – Swiss researchers are the first to demonstrate the electron emission properties of carbon nanotubes. German inventors Till Keesmann and Hubert Grosse-Wilde predicted this property of carbon nanotubes earlier in the year in their patent application.
**  First carbon nanotube single-electron transistors (operating at low temperature) are demonstrated by groups at Delft University and UC Berkeley.
**  The first suggestion of using carbon nanotubes as optical antennas is made in the patent application of inventor Robert Crowley filed in January 1997.
* 1998 – First carbon nanotube field-effect transistors are demonstrated by groups at Delft University and IBM.