Abstract
Polymer pen lithography (PPL) is an approach to multiplexing scanning probe lithography, in which an array of probes on a compliant film-coated rigid substrate are used to write patterns on a surface. Recently, it was shown that these nominally passive pen arrays can be rendered photo-active by making them out of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)–carbon nanotube (CNT) composite. While such photoactuated pens in principle represent a rapid, maskless, and versatile nanomanufacturing strategy, a key challenge that remains is learning how to effectively control the writing of each pen, individually. In this research, we studied the design of PDMS–CNT thin-film photoactuators and experimentally explored the role of illumination radius, film thickness, and CNT concentration. Additionally, we have proposed a model that predicts actuation efficiency, actuation time, and the crosstalk between pens. Based upon these results, we have generated a map of working efficiency to elucidate the ideal choice for specific actuation requirements. This work lays the foundation for studying further photoactuatable composite films as actuators in applications beyond lithography including soft robotics and adaptive optics.
Highlights
Breakthroughs in nanotechnology have continued over the past decades, partly due to the development of advanced forms of nanolithography, such as scanning probe lithography, nanoimprint lithography, and electron beam lithography [1,2,3,4,5,6]
In order to overcome this challenge, polymer pen lithography (PPL) was introduced as a high throughput scanning probe technique that integrates millions of elastomeric pens on a rigid backing layer, coated with a compliant film that serves the role of the cantilever in dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]
In order to begin exploring the conditions for efficient photoactuation with minimal crosstalk, we hypothesized that the size of the illumination area, as parameterized by R, plays a critical role
Summary
Breakthroughs in nanotechnology have continued over the past decades, partly due to the development of advanced forms of nanolithography, such as scanning probe lithography, nanoimprint lithography, and electron beam lithography [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) was first introduced as a maskless nanolithography technique that uses the tip of a commercially available scanning probe to physically transport different kinds of inks (molecular inks, hydrogels, lipids, etc.) onto a variety of substrates [7,8,9,10]. While this technique allows direct writing in a simple process, the low throughput inherent to serial writing remains a central barrier. While this technique dramatically improves upon the throughput of single-pen
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