In Dip Pen Nanolithography® (DPN®), ink transport is reported to occur through the water meniscus formed between the AFM tip and the substrate by capillary condensation. It is imperative to understand the ink transport mechanisms in order to develop reliable commercial applications of DPN, and NanoInk is at the forefront of these efforts. In this work, we model the dot patterns of 16-Mercaptohexadecanoic acid (MHA) created by evaporative coating of a 1D 18 cantilever array and perform predictive modeling with solution based MHA cantilever inking results. We extend the functionality of the NanoInk 2D nano PrintArray^TM (2D array) by measuring the uniformity of 1-octadenethiol (ODT) dot patterns created. Further, we try to quantify the uniformity of patterns created by the 2D array, in a more statistically quantitative way. We do this by measuring the dot diameters of over 200 ODT ink patterns over a 1x1cm² area and examining the uniformity of the ODT vapor inking protocol developed.

Date Published: 30 April 2008
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6959, Micro (MEMS) and Nanotechnologies for Space, Defense, and Security II, 69591B (30 April 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.791530

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6959:
Micro (MEMS) and Nanotechnologies for Space, Defense, and Security II
Thomas George; Zhongyang Cheng, Editor(s)