Combing a carbon nanotube on a flat metal-insulator-metal nanojunction

The ability of a receding wetting line to align carbon nanotubes with a diameter down to 1 nm (molecular combing) is demonstrated on silica surfaces subjected to different surface treatments and on coplanar metal-insulator-metal nanojunctions. A combination of surface modification of the electrodes and molecular combing yields nanotubes connected to both electrodes across the junction in as much as 45% of the nanojunctions. When the current-voltage characteristics were recorded over the interconnected nanotubes, no influence of the surface treatment was observed on the conductance.