Dip Pen Nanolithography Stamp Tip

Abstract

A simple and novel method for fabricating poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)-coated dip pen nanolithography (DPN) stamp tips was developed. These kinds of tips absorb chemicals (“inks”) easily and allow one to generate molecule-based patterns in a conventional DPN experiment. The generated patterns also can be imaged with the same DPN stamp tips. This method is a type of scanning probe contact printing but provides the ability to generate higher resolution structures than one can obtain with the conventional technique, which thus far has only enabled micron scale patterning. Sub-100 nm resolution patterning with 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid (MHA) as an ink is demonstrated with these novel tips and is comparable to what one can obtain with a conventional ink-coated Si3N4 probe tip. Proof-of-concept is also demonstrated with 1-octadecanethiol (ODT), dendrimers and cystamine as inks.

Polymer Pen Lithography

“…As with DPN, features made by PPL exhibit a size that is linearly dependent on the square root of the tip-substrate contact time ( fig. S4) (27)(28)(29). This property of PPL, which is a result of the diffusive characteristics of the ink and the small size of the delivery tips, allowed us to pattern submicrometer features with high precision and reproducibility (variation of feature size is less than 10% under the same experimental conditions).…”

“…As www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 321 19 SEPTEMBER 2008 a result, writing a 100 by 100 mm 2 area requires only 400 printing cycles (less than 0.5 s for each cycle), and the total time required to generate 100 duplicates of the circuit is~2 hours. Re-inking of the pen array is not necessary because the PDMS behaves as a reservoir for the ink throughout the experiment (28,29). This relatively high-throughput production of multiscale patterns would be difficult, if not impossible, to do by EBL or DPN.…”

Patterning Colloidal Metal Nanoparticles for Controlled Growth of Carbon Nanotubes

“…Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN), a direct-write scanning probe-based technique, has been intensively developed over the past several years. [21][22][23][24] Using DPN, materials, namely ''inks'', can be directly transported from the ink-coated atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip to a substrate; to generate microand nanopatterns with high registration capability. Unlike the traditional lithographic methods, DPN is a maskless and single-step direct-writing method, and can be carried out under moderate operating conditions (does not require high vacuum or high-energy ions or beams), which eliminate the possibility of cross-contamination and sample-damage.…”

Development of Dip‐Pen Nanolithography (DPN) and Its Derivatives

“…to various substrates at a sub‐50 nm length scale. Also, those DPN‐generated patterns of organic molecules and catalysts can be used for further controlled assembly of other nanomaterials, such as peptide arrays, carbon nanotubes, gold nanoparticles, and graphene oxide sheets . In general, a meniscus formed between the scanning tip and the substrate (either by condensation of ambient humidity or the used ink itself) serves as a conduit for ink transport.…”