A key requirement in the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) technology is to develop a method able to produce well positioned structures of nanotubes with uniform and reproducible properties, simple to integrate within the manufacturing process of electronic devices. The catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) of carbon nanotubes is a fully compatible technique with the ultra large scale integration process of the microelectronic industry. For this reason we have developed site-selective CCVD synthesis on substrates where patterned islands of catalyst are formed. This type of deposition process has been proved to grow nanotubes at controllable locations. Several types of substrates used in the microelectronic industry, such as silicon, silicon oxide and porous silicon have been considered. On these substrates metallic iron in the form nanoparticles was used as a …