Parallel dip-pen nanolithography with arrays of individually addressable cantilevers

In dip-pen nanolithography (DPN), nanoscale chemical patterns are created by directly transferring chemical molecules from the tip of an atomic force microscope probe to a surface. We report the development of a thermally actuated probe array for DPN applications. The array consists of ten thermal bimorph actuated probes, each 300 μm long, with a lateral spacing of 100 μm. The probes are actuated by passing dc current through a heater embedded in the probe base. The array is demonstrated by using it to simultaneously write ten different octadecanethiol patterns on a gold surface.