Carbon nanotubes grow to pillars

In this paper, we report on the self-assembly growth of micro-pillars consisting of well-aligned carbon nanotubes on the uneven surfaces of silicon chips by chemical vapour deposition, which could be useful for the fabrication of electron field emitters, micro-electromechanical devices, interconnection for microelectronics, etc. The mechanism for the growth of isolated pillars within large-area aligned carbon nanotube arrays is also discussed.