Oxidized single-wall carbon nanotubes were chemically attached to a modified copper substrate by means of a 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP) self-assembly monolayer (SAM). This bottom up approach offers a low cost route to attach carbon nanotubes by using a condensation reaction. Here, the exposed amine from the 4-ATP SAM reacts with the carboxylic group (COOH) on the CNT. The reaction was followed using ATR-FTIR and the surface was characterized using SEM, XPS, and Raman. The analytical techniques used on this study suggest that the condensation reaction employed using a carbodiimide such as 1-Ethyl-3-[3-dimethylaminopropyl] carbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC) produced SWCNT attached to the copper substrate. Published by Elsevier B.V.