A NEW TECHNIQUE FOR HIGH-PRECISION NANO MANUFACTURING
25 August 2005 - National Science Foundation

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have demonstrated a new technique for nano-manufacturing that could make it significantly easier to create high-precision components for nanoscale electronics, sensing devices and the like.

Known as microdisplacement printing, the new technique is based on a widely used patterning method known as microcontact printing, a simple way of fabricating chemical patterns that does not require clean rooms and other kinds of special and expensive environments.

Both methods involve "inking" a patterned rubber-like stamp with a solution of molecules, then applying the inked stamp to a surface. "But the new microdisplacement technique gives us more control over the precision with which the patterns are placed and retained, and also allows us to use a wider range of molecules," says principal investigator Paul Weiss.

Weiss and his colleagues were funded in part by the National Science Foundation, and will describe their new technique in the 14 September issue of the journal Nano Letters.

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