Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were decorated with Ni clusters by thermal evaporation. It is shown that the CNT decoration with Ni varies from well-organized clusters to the complete coverage of the surface resulting in electronic charge transfer and formation of Ni-C bonds at the interface between these two materials, depending on the evaporated amount of Ni. The Ni-CNTs interaction induces an increase in the metallicity of the system suggesting that CNTs decorated with metal atoms can be a good candidate as template for production of metal nanowires. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.