US Patent 7466069 - CNT bridge

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7466069.html

In order to better characterize the properties of carbon nanotubes and use the nanotubes in applications such as molecular sensors this patent from Harvard teaches growing a suspended nanotube over an apertured region of a substrate suitable for a flow through sensor. Claim 1 reads:

1. A carbon nanotube device comprising:

a substrate including an aperture extending from a front surface to a back surface of the substrate, with the aperture open only at the front surface and the back surface;

at least one pair of electrically conducting contact pads disposed on a selected one of the front and back substrate surfaces with the conducting contact pads in a given pair of pads being separated from each other by the aperture;

a carbon nanotube catalyst region disposed on top of each of the contact pads in alignment with an edge of the aperture and exposed at the selected substrate surface; and

at least one carbon nanotube extending across the aperture and accessible through the aperture from both the front surface and the back surface of the substrate, each end of the carbon nanotube contacting an exposed catalyst region on a contact pad at the selected substrate surface.