Assembly of mm-scale macrobridges with carbon nanotube bundles

We report a chemical vapor deposition method for in situ bridging of mm-scale metal-contact patterns with bundles of multiwalled carbon nanotubes. The nanotube bundles synthesized from a hexane-ferrocene-thiophene mixture have a diameter of <50 mum and lengths up to millimeters, typically consisting of tens to hundreds of aligned nanotubes. These bundles are transported to the downstream end of the furnace, where they are captured by relief patterns of metal-contact tips. We can control the orientation and length of the nanotube bridges by preorganizing the metal tips to receive the bundles. This method is amenable to both scaling up, e.g., to create large-area arrays of nanotubes with contact electrodes, as well as scaling down, e.g., to bridge closely spaced contact structures. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.