Site-specific dual ink dip pen nanolithography

The ability to deposit different materials with nanoscale precision at user-specified locations is a very important attribute of dip pen nanolithography (DPN). However, the potential of DPN goes beyond simple deposition since DPN used in conjunction with lateral force microscopy (LFM) allows site-specific investigations of nanoscale properties. In this work, we use two different inks, 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid (MHA) and 1-octadecanethiol (ODT) to show site-specific dual ink DPN enabled exclusively by our proprietary software. A diamond-dot pattern was created by using a layer-to-layer alignment (LLA) algorithm, which enables a MHA pattern (diamond) to be written concentric with another ODT (central dot) pattern. This simple demonstration of multi-ink DPN is not specific to alkanethiol ink systems, but is also applicable to other multi-material patterning, interaction, and exchange studies.