Cantilever-Free Scanning Probe Molecular Printing

摘要

Over the past decade, molecular printing tools and techniques that enable the direct transfer and constructive delivery of molecules to a surface with sub-micrometer resolution have undergone transformational developments. Such progress not only increases the accessibility and generality of molecular printing to a broad scientific audience, but it also allows researchers to study diverse and complex systems ranging from the natural to the applied sciences. The broad category of molecular printing can be divided into 1) soft lithography, known also as microcontact printing, and 2) scanning probe-based approaches originating from dip-pen nanolithography (DPN). The invention of each technique marks an important departure from conventional lithography approaches in the semiconductor industry, which rely on both the delivery of energy and destruction of material on a surface to achieve the desired patterning result.