Growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes from microcontact-printed catalyst patterns on thin Si3N4 membranes

Single-walled carbon nanotubes have been grown by chemical vapor deposition from methane and hydrogen on catalyst patterns prepared by microcontact pr inting on 20 nm thick silicon nitride substrates. A higher yield of single- walled carbon nanotubes was obtained by the simple expedient of introducing hydrogen during deposition. Based on atomic force microscopy and transmiss ion electron microscopy measurements, we found that high-quality single-wal led carbon nanotubes with a broad diameter distribution were obtained.