A wafer-scale fabrication approach for manufacturing single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) tips is implemented. Catalyst material is selectively placed (e.g., patterned) onto a plurality of prefabricated elevated structures (e.g., silicon tips) on a wafer. SWNTs are grown protruding from the catalyst on the elevated structures. The resulting SWNT protruding from a tip can be implemented in a variety of applications, such as in atomic force microscopy (AFM). With this approach, nanotube tips can be implemented for a variety of applications, including advanced nanoscale imaging, imaging of solid-state and soft biological systems and for scanning probe lithography.