This is an abstract for a presentation given at the Sixth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology . There will be a link from here to the full article when it is available on the web.
Carbon nanotubes represent a promising material for nanotechnology.
It can be considered as a curved graphene sheet. While carbon nanotubes are sythesized successfully with laser ablation, carbon arc, or CVD techniques, it is also speculated that tailoring graphene sheet to form nanotubes or even other novel materials might be possible. Here we present a different approach, which is more reliable and controllable. Before employing manipulation by SPM tip, the HOPG surface was patterned to create an array of small graphite islands. Current research efforts involve attempting to peel graphene sheets from the graphite islands and to further manipulate them with SPM tips.