High-Speed Microcontact Printing

Abstract

We have demonstrated microcontact printing (muCP) of self-assembled monolayers in the millisecond regime. The contact formation and separation of the stamp and substrate was studied with high-speed video recordings. Using high ink concentrations and contact times as short as 1 ms, we printed monolayers of hexadecanethiol on Au, which served as a selective etch resist. High-speed muCP yields defect-free monolayers that are independent of the dimensions of the printed patterns, have high contrast between printed and unprinted areas, and enable perfect reproducibility of prints.

Sub-Micrometer Patterning Using Soft Lithography

“…Successful printing generally relies on mastering a number of parameters, which include the concentration of thiols in the ink (and thus on the stamp), the duration of contact and the pressure applied to the stamp [76,90]. chain length, the nature of their head group etc.…”

Sub-Micrometer Patterning Using Soft Lithography

“…Successful printing generally relies on mastering a number of parameters, which include the concentration of thiols in the ink (and thus on the stamp), the duration of contact and the pressure applied to the stamp [76,90]. It is possible to use similar protocols to the patterning of other [21,76,77,79,82].…”

Roll-to-Roll Microcontact Printing of Flexible Aluminum Substrates Using Octadecylphosphonic Acid (ODPA)

“…The process involves the transfer of selfassembling molecular monolayers from patterned elastomer stamps [3,4] and has emerged in the last decade as a leading candidate for full-scale commercial production of nanopatterned surfaces [5]. While rooted in the ancient technology of "printing" it differs not only because of the sub-micron features size, but also in the basic physics of ink transfer.…”