We report on an 'all-laser' approach for the growth of highly oriented planar (2D) arrays of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) onto HOPG substrates. This growth process uses the same KrF laser to deposit, in a first step, the CoNi nanoparticles onto HOPG and then to grow, in a subsequent step, the SWCNTs from the ablation of a pure graphite target. It is shown that the laser-grown 2D arrays of SWCNTs exhibit not only a very narrow diameter distribution (similar to 1 nm-diam.) but more notably a strong alignment over the underlying HOPG lattice. The 'all-laser' process is also shown to be extremely efficient in converting the laser-ablated graphite into SWCNTs. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.