RP of nanostructures!!article in Nature

From: Ashwin Hattiangadi (ashwin@mme.wsu.edu)
Date: Thu May 04 2000 - 07:06:40 EEST


Nature, 405, 56 - 60 (2000) © Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

Rapid prototyping of patterned functional nanostructures

HONGYOU FAN, YUNFENG LU, AARON STUMP, SCOTT T. REED, TOM BAER, RANDY
SCHUNK, VICTOR PEREZ-LUNA, GABRIEL P. LÓPEZ & C. JEFFREY BRINKER

Abstract:

Living systems exhibit form and function on multiple length scales and
at multiple locations. In order to mimic such natural structures, it is
necessary to develop efficient strategies for assembling hierarchical
materials. Conventional photolithography, although ubiquitous in the
fabrication of microelectronics and microelectromechanical systems, is
impractical for defining feature sizes below 0.1 micrometres and poorly
suited to pattern chemical functionality.
Recently, so-called 'soft' lithographic approaches have been combined
with surfactant and particulate templating procedures to create
materials with multiple levels of structural order. But the materials
thus formed have been limited primarily to oxides with no specific
functionality, and the associated processing times have ranged from
hours to days. Here, using a self-assembling 'ink', we combine
silica–surfactant self-assembly with three rapid printing procedures—pen
lithography, ink-jet printing, and dip-coating of patterned
self-assembled onolayers—to form functional, hierarchically organized
structures in seconds. The rapid-prototyping procedures we describe are
simple, employ readily available equipment, and provide a link between
computer-aided design and self-assembled nanostructures. We expect that
the ability to form arbitrary functional designs on arbitrary surfaces
will be of practical importance for directly writing sensor arrays and
fluidic or photonic systems.

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