Selective growth of aligned carbon nanotubes on a silver-patterned substrate by the silver mirror reaction

It was found that carbon nanotubes prepared by the pyrolysis of iron(II) phthalocyanine (FePc) can selectively grow on a SiO2 surface when the SiO2 wafer is patterned by silver. A combination of the micro-contact printing (muCP) technique and chemical reaction (classical silver tollens reaction, also called silver mirror reaction) has been applied to generate a silver pattern with micro/nanoscale resolution on a quartz glass substrate (silver selectively deposits on hydrophilic regions), and an aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) pattern with the same resolution can be fabricated by the pyrolysis of FePc on the basis of the selective growth. This new method represents a great advantage of controlled fabrication of a micro/nanoscale aligned CNT pattern on a conducting surface (silver) by combination of soft-lithography and chemical approach for various device applications, requiring high-resolution pattern and conducting surface.