Patterned Carbon Nanotube Growth on Convex Cylindrical Stainless Steel Substrates for the Production of Coronary Stents

This paper reports research in fabrication of cylindrical stents using carbon-infiltrated carbon nanotubes (CI-CNT), a material with good hemocompatibility. We demonstrate growth of CI-CNT forests in patterned lines on a 3 mm diameter stainless steel (SS) rod. Lines were patterned parallel, at 7°, at 45°, and perpendicular relative to the axis of the rod. Minimal cracking was seen in the parallel and angled lines. Significant cracking was seen in the perpendicular lines and we attempted to characterize the cracking in order to correlate it to width of the lines and height of the forest. No correlation was found but the average uncracked length was determined to be 414 μm with a standard deviation of 67 μm. We also demonstrate successful growth with minimal cracking of CI-CNT forests in a zig-zag type pattern in an effort to further the possibility of creating a coronary stent utilizing CI-CNT. Some of the patterned samples were also removed from the cylindrical substrate, resulting in free-standing, patterned, cylindrical patterns made from CI-CNT.