Horizontally aligned growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes on a surface-modified silicon wafer

For the integration with modern Si-based electronics, it is important to organize single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) into a rational structure on a Si wafer with a SiO₂ oxide layer. In this study, the aligned growth of SWNTs was achieved on the SiO₂/Si substrate whose surface was pretreated with CF₄ plasma. The plasma treatment gave the radially extended steps which guided the SWNT growth. Back-gate field effect transistors were demonstrated with the aligned SWNTs. Our work presents the possibility of assembling SWNTs on SiO₂/Si substrate through the formation of artificial step structures, which is a great step toward fully functional SWNT-on-Si devices.