Precision nanoscale deposition is a fundamental requirement for nanoscience research, development, and commercial implementation. Dip Pen Nanolithography(R) (DPN) is an inherently additive SPM-based technique which operates under ambient conditions, making it suitable to deposit a wide range of biological and inorganic materials. This technique is fundamentally enabled by a portfolio of MEMS devices tailored for microfluidic ink delivery, directed placement of nanoscale materials via actuated cantilevers, and cm2 tip arrays for high-throughput nanofabrication. Multiplexed deposition of nanoscale materials is a challenging problem, but we have implemented InkWells^(TM) to enable selective delivery of ink materials to different tips in multiple probe arrays, while preventing cross-contamination. Active Pens^(TM) can take advantage of this, directly place a variety of materials in nanoscale proximity, and do so in a "clean" fashion since the cantilevers can be manipulated in Z. Further, massively parallel two-dimensional nanopatterning with DPN is now commercially available via NanoInk's 2D nano PrintArray(TM), making DPN a highthroughput, flexible and versatile method for precision nanoscale pattern formation. By fabricating 55,000 tip-cantilevers across a 1 cm² chip, we leverage the inherent versatility of DPN and demonstrate large area surface coverage, routinely achieving throughputs of 3×107 μm² per hour. Further, we have engineered the device to be easy to use, wire-free, and fully integrated with the NSCRIPTOR's scanner, stage, and sophisticated lithography routines. In this talk we discuss the methods of operating this commercially available device, and subsequent results showing sub-100 nm feature sizes and excellent uniformity (standard deviation < 16%). Finally, we will discuss applications enabled by this MEMS portfolio including: 1) rapidly and flexibly generating nanostructures; 2) chemically directed assembly and 3) directly writing biological materials.

Date Published: 18 February 2009
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 7207, Microfluidics, BioMEMS, and Medical Microsystems VII, 720706 (18 February 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.817396

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7207:
Microfluidics, BioMEMS, and Medical Microsystems VII
Wanjun Wang, Editor(s)