Speed Dependence of Thermochemical Nanolithography for Gray‐Scale Patterning

Abstract

Thermochemical nanolithography (TCNL) is a high-resolution lithographic technique and, owing to its fast speed, versatility, and unique ability to fabricate arbitrary, gray-scale nanopatterns, this scanning probe technique is relevant both for fundamental scientific research as well as for nanomanufacturing applications. In this work, we study the dependence of the TCNL driven chemical reactions on the translation speed of the thermal cantilever. The experimental data compares well with a model of the chemical kinetics for a first-order reaction. The impact of higher order reactions on the optimization of TCNL is addressed. The reported quantitative description of the speed dependence of TCNL is exploited and illustrated by fabricating controlled gradients of chemical concentration.

Spatial defects nanoengineering for bipolar conductivity in MoS2

“…In Fig. 1c, the data are fitted according to a first-order kinetic reaction equation developed for the case of a hot tip sliding on a thermally reactive polymer surface 47 (Supplementary Note 1 and Supplementary Fig. 1).…”

Thermochemical scanning probe lithography of protein gradients at the nanoscale

“…Thermally-assisted scanning probe lithography is based on the use of a heated AFM tip to locally induce physicochemical modifications on the surface of a suitable substrate [26][27][28][29][30]. Recently, some of the authors showed that tc-SPL can be used for creating nanopatterns of reactive amino groups suitable for the immobilization of proteins [31], and that it is possible to control the concentration of such amino groups with extreme precision by tuning the patterning parameters [32,33]. In this paper we demonstrate the creation by tc-SPL of arbitrarily shaped micro-and sub-micrometric patterns of controlled graded concentration of streptavidin and laminin proteins.…”

Thermal scanning probe lithography—a review

“…(c) Sub-10 nm resolution: A heated tip with an apex diameter below 10 nm can produce complex geometries with a lateral resolution below 10 nm 29 , which is more than one order of magnitude better than direct-write laser lithography. (d) 3D patterning: Today's t-SPL tools precisely control the actuation force and the tip-sample contact duration, thereby enabling 3D (grayscale) patterning 30 with vertical resolution better than 1 nm 31 and controlled patterning of chemical gradients 32,33 . (e) Robust and compact setup: The components of a t-SPL tool are relatively simple and cost-effective compared to focused electron or ion beam systems.…”

“…A compelling benefit of the serial writing process of t-SPL is that the temperature and tip-sample contact duration can be locally set, which permits precise control of the fraction of functional and protected sites 32,33 . Figure 6a shows a fluorescently labeled replication of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" image, which was fabricated by setting the temperature at the tip-sample contact according to the grayscale value of the image, modulating the fraction of the deprotected functional groups.…”

“…Similar to THP, tertiary butyl ester groups have been successfully used to protect functional groups followed by localized deprotection with heated probe 84,85 . 32,33,[78][79][80][81][82]84,85 . b Conversion of a functional material from a precursor 42,45,[86][87][88][89][90][91][92]94,95 .…”