PRINTING ON THE NANOSCALE

Abstract

ELECTRICALLY CHARGED JETS of liquid lie at the heart of a novel printing method that can be used to form complex patterns with nanoscale features from a variety of inks on nearly any type of surface, according to a team of researchers based in the U.S. and South Korea ( Nano Lett. , DOI: 10.1021/nl903495f). The study demonstrates a versatile technique for patterning surfaces with positively and negatively charged microscopic regions of arbitrary shape—an advance that may lead to new methods for fabricating electronic devices and controlling their properties. Xerography is a decades-old printing technology based on electrostatic attraction between a charge pattern “drawn” with light on a photoconducting surface (a photocopier “drum”) and oppositely charged toner particles. Efforts to increase xerography’s spatial resolution from the tens-of-micrometers range led to demonstrations in the past few years of new procedures based on scanning-probe tips and elastomeric stamps. Those techniques offer ways of prin...