Fabrication of ordered carbon nanotube structures by unconventional lithography

We use stamp assisted depostition to align single walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) starting from a water suspension of CNTs in sodium dodecyl, sulphate (SDS) solution,. The driving force of the process is the interplay between capillary flow and spatial continement which leads CNTs to self-organize into bundles aligned in rows hundred of micrometresilong lithographically controlled wetting, where the solution is confined in menisci pinned to the stamp protrusions yields patterns with feature size as small as single nanotubes. Using micromolding in capillaries instead we fabricate patterns of CNTs lines, with nanometric size, preferentially aligned along the microchannel axis and exbibiting a conductivity of about 100 S/cm. (C) 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim