The interfacial shear stress between gold and dielectrophoretically assembled single-walled carbon nanotubes can be increased by annealing in N-2, by e-beam irradiation, or by e-beam deposition of carbon. For the first time this increase has been measured, using a technique developed by this group that is based on NEMS cantilever measurements combined with modeling. Annealing increases the shear stress by more than a factor of 3 over its value of 87 MPa for untreated gold surfaces, while e-beam irradiation increases the shear stress by more than a factor of 2 and carbon deposition increases the shear stress by a smaller amount. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.