Article
Electric-Field-Assisted Dip-Pen Nanolithography on Poly(4-vinylpyridine) (P4VP) Thin Films
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
(2010)
Abstract
Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) has attracted increased attention for its ability to generate nanometer-scale patterns on solid surface using an “ink”-coated atomic force microscope (AFM) tip. In contrast to this conventional anchoring-molecules procedure, nanopatterns can also be created by triggering the structural response of the proper substrate. In one approach, the delivery of acidic buffer from the tip into a poly(4-vinylpyridine) (P4VP) thin film (while the tip is being laterally moved, in a raster fashion, along a preprogrammed pattern) leads to the polymer swelling in response to the local protonation. This practice, however, has suffered from a lack of consistency due to the potentially many factors influencing the pattern formation. Herein we report that a more reliable strategy for well controlling the protonation process results when applying an electric field between the AFM tip and the sample. We demonstrate the improved capabilities of the electric-field-assisted DPN method towards reproducibly and reliably fabricating nanostructures by taking advantage of the responsive characteristics (i.e. swelling) of P4VP. Our work includes a systematic study of pattern fabrication under different patterning parameters (mainly the applied bias and contact force) and, very important, provides evidence of the reversible characteristic of the pattern formation process.
Keywords
- Cross-linked P4VP thin film,
- Protonation,
- Electric-field-assisted,
- Erasable patterns,
- Dip-pen nanolithography
Publication Date
October, 2010
Citation Information
Xiaohua Wang, Xin Wang, Rodolfo Fernandez, Leonidas Ocola, et al.. "Electric-Field-Assisted Dip-Pen Nanolithography on Poly(4-vinylpyridine) (P4VP) Thin Films" ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces Vol. 2 Iss. 10 (2010) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/la_rosa/13/