Patent 7504152 was granted and assigned to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on March, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A flash CVD process can be employed to grow micron- and nano-sized tree-like structures, particularly carbon structures on graphite electrodes. This process involves fast cyclic resistive heating of electrodes in an atmosphere of inert gas and hydrocarbons at below atmospheric pressure.