Integration of suspended carbon nanotube arrays into electronic devices and electromechanical systems

A synthetic strategy is devised for reliable integration of long suspended single-walled carbon nanotubes into electrically addressable devices. The method involves patterned growth of nanotubes to bridge predefined molybdenum electrodes, and is versatile in yielding various microstructures comprised of suspended nanotubes that are electrically wired up. The approach affords single-walled nanotube devices without any postgrowth processing, and will find applications in scalable nanotube transistors (mobility up to 10 000 cm(2)/V s) and nanoelectromechanical systems based on nanowires. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.