US Patent 7744440 - CNT growth with inactivation layer

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7744440.html

Carbon nanotube arrays are commonly grown from catalytic metal layers using a CVD method in order to form wide area electronic devices such as flat panel displays. This method from Samsung teaches using fullerene material as an inactivation layer to mask portions of the catalytic metal and control the areas where nanotubes are grown. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of growing carbon nanotubes, comprising:

preparing a substrate;

forming a catalyst metal layer on the substrate, an activity of the catalyst layer promoting growing of carbon nanotubes;

forming an inactivation layer on the catalyst metal layer to reduce the activity of the catalyst metal layer, the inactivation layer including a plurality of inactivation lumps, each of the inactivation lumps being separated with a predetermined gap from another of the inactivation lumps;

growing carbon nanotubes from a surface of the catalyst metal layer.