US Patent 7217404 - Photoinduced combustion of carbon nanotubes

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7217404.html

Several years back an undergraduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was taking some flash photographs in a lab and accidentally ignited a clump of single-walled carbon nanotubes (see article at http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0006C256-22D2-1CD0-B4A8809EC588EEDF)

It appears as if the researchers in the lab filed a patent for the effect which has issued with a fairly broad claim reading:

1. A method of transforming a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) comprising exposing the SWNT to light having a power sufficient to ignite the SWNT, wherein the SWNT is ignited by the light.