Large-area molecular patterning with polymer pen lithography

Abstract

The challenge of constructing surfaces with nanostructured chemical functionality is central to many areas of biology and biotechnology. This protocol describes the steps required for performing molecular printing using polymer pen lithography (PPL), a cantilever-free scanning probe-based technique that can generate sub-100-nm molecular features in a massively parallel fashion. To illustrate how such molecular printing can be used for a variety of biologically relevant applications, we detail the fabrication of the lithographic apparatus and the deposition of two materials, an alkanethiol and a polymer onto a gold and silicon surface, respectively, and show how the present approach can be used to generate nanostructures composed of proteins and metals. Finally, we describe how PPL enables researchers to easily create combinatorial arrays of nanostructures, a powerful approach for high-throughput screening. A typical protocol for fabricating PPL arrays and printing with the arrays takes 48-72 h to complete, including two overnight waiting steps.

Polymeric lithography editor: Editing lithographic errors with nanoporous polymeric probes

“…The deposition pattern size was monitored and tuned in real time by adjusting the z-piezoelectric stage while the deposition was in progress. The reversibly compressible PDMS can be flattened when pressed on the substrate to fabricate the patterns with a premeditated dimension ( 55 ). Although the PDMS pens can be used to deposit submicrometer features (fig.…”

Controlling Motion at the Nanoscale: Rise of the Molecular Machines

“…New directions may take advantage of combining bottom-up molecular assembly techniques with top-down patterning methods to design novel materials with controllable features from sub-100-nm to the centimeter scale. [175][176][177][178][179] Patterning diverse switch and/or rotor components side by side with precise two-dimensional control may give rise to new surface functionality with molecular packing density gradients or multiplexed domains with various available actuation mechanisms. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 While polymeric materials offer ease of processing and fabrication, crystalline motifs offer a path to near-perfect three-dimensional arrangements of dynamic molecular building blocks, as well as a facile means to monitor the motion of the crystals using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and X-ray diffraction.…”

High Throughput Screening with Biofabrication Platforms

“…Anderson et al [40] manufactured a biomaterial microarray composed of 25 different monomers combined with one photoinitiator (576 conditions) to evaluate human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and mouse muscle myoblast cells attachment, proliferation, and differentiation. 11.1e reprinted with permission from Eichelsdoerfer et al [52].) In a similar study, 22 acrylate monomers printed in a combinatorial fashion were used to prepare biomaterial microarrays and investigate the clonal Pin-based systems are equipped with a pin or pin array that might be assembled according to the array spacing to be printed.…”

“…One example is a cantilever-free imprinting approach that allows the simultaneous dispensing of multiple droplets, which was developed by Eichelsdoerfer et al [52]. One example is a cantilever-free imprinting approach that allows the simultaneous dispensing of multiple droplets, which was developed by Eichelsdoerfer et al [52].…”