Aligned, ultralong single-walled carbon nanotubes: from synthesis, sorting, to electronic devices

Aligned, ultralong single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) represent attractive building blocks for nanoelectronics. The structural uniformity along their tube axis and well-ordered two-dimensional architectures on wafer surfaces may provide a straightforward platform for fabricating high-performance SWNT-based integrated circuits. On the way towards future nanoelectronic devices, many challenges for such a specific system also exist. This Review summarizes the recent advances in the synthesis, identification and sorting, transfer printing and manipulation, device fabrication and integration of aligned, ultralong SWNTs in detail together with discussion on their major challenges and opportunities for their practical application.