Field-assisted nanopatterning of metals, metal oxides and metal salts

The tip-based nanofabrication method called field-assisted nanopatterning or FAN has now been extended to the transfer of metals, metal oxides and metal salts onto various receiving substrates including highly ordered pyrolytic graphite, passivated gold and indium-tin oxide. Standard atomic force microscope tips were first dip-coated using suspensions of inorganic compounds in solvent. The films prepared in this manner were non-uniform and contained inorganic nanoparticles. Tip-based nanopatterning on chosen substrates was conducted under high electric field conditions. The same tip was used for both nanofabrication and imaging. Arbitrary patterns were formed with dimensions that ranged from tens of microns to sub-20 nm and were controlled by tuning the tip bias during fabrication. Most tip-based nanopatterning techniques are limited in terms of the type of species that can be deposited and the type of substrates onto which the deposition occurs. With the successful deposition of inorganic species reported here, FAN is demonstrated to be a truly versatile tip-based nanofabrication technique that is useful for the deposition of a wide variety of both organic and inorganic species including small molecules, large molecules and polymers.

[1]  Glen P. Miller,et al.  Field-Assisted Nanopatterning , 2007 .

[2]  Kazuhiko Matsumoto,et al.  Terabit-per-square-inch data storage with the atomic force microscope , 1999 .

[3]  Nanometer Recording on Graphite and Si Substrate Using an Atomic Force Microscope in Air , 1993 .

[4]  D. Rugar,et al.  Atomic emission from a gold scanning-tunneling-microscope tip. , 1990, Physical review letters.

[5]  John A. Dagata,et al.  Device Fabrication by Scanned Probe Oxidation , 1995, Science.

[6]  Jane Frommer,et al.  Ultrafast molecule sorting and delivery by atomic force microscopy , 2006 .

[7]  Hong,et al.  A nanoplotter with both parallel and serial writing capabilities , 2000, Science.

[8]  S. Hosaka,et al.  Field evaporation of gold atoms onto a silicon dioxide film by using an atomic force microscope , 1995 .

[9]  Xu,et al.  "Dip-Pen" nanolithography , 1999, Science.

[10]  Michael T. Postek,et al.  Modification of hydrogen-passivated silicon by a scanning tunneling microscope operating in air , 1990 .

[11]  Chad A Mirkin,et al.  The evolution of dip-pen nanolithography. , 2004, Angewandte Chemie.

[12]  Hong,et al.  Multiple ink nanolithography: toward a multiple-Pen nano-plotter , 1999, Science.

[13]  Hongjie Dai,et al.  Exploiting the properties of carbon nanotubes for nanolithography , 1998 .

[14]  Ricardo Garcia,et al.  Patterning of silicon surfaces with noncontact atomic force microscopy: Field-induced formation of nanometer-size water bridges , 1999 .

[15]  Sidney R. Cohen,et al.  “Constructive Nanolithography”: Inert Monolayers as Patternable Templates for In‐Situ Nanofabrication of Metal–Semiconductor–Organic Surface Structures—A Generic Approach , 2000 .

[16]  Emmanuel Dubois,et al.  Nanometer scale lithography on silicon, titanium and PMMA resist using scanning probe microscopy , 1999 .

[17]  Mark W Grinstaff,et al.  Direct-writing of polymer nanostructures: poly(thiophene) nanowires on semiconducting and insulating surfaces. , 2002, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[18]  Seong-Ju Park,et al.  Atomic force microscope tip-induced anodization of titanium film for nanofabrication of oxide patterns , 2000 .