Bruce Hinds’ group at the University of Kentucky is researching the controlled growth of carbon nanotubes for an advanced nm-scale lithography process for an Air Force sponsored DoD EPSCoR project.  At the heart of the approach is the selective growth of CNT on SiO2 surfaces but not hydrogen-terminated Si surfaces during a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process.  The CVD process is based on the decomposition of ferrocene into nano-crystals of Fe catalyst.  On SiO2 this process occurs but not on bare Si.  A working hypothesis to study is that the Fe diffuses quickly into before bare Si before forming nano-crystals of Fe catalyst.  We are using Louisville’s surface science facility to study the concentration of Fe and its diffusion profile on both SiO2 and bare Si substrates in our CNT growth process.  This data would be the basis of proving the physiochemical mechanism for selective growth.