Suitability of printing technology (part 5)

DPN, meaning Dip Pen Nanolithography is very much in the laboratory for now, promising much but not near commercialisation.Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) was first developed by Dr. Seunghun Hong, Assistant Professor of Physics, and his co-workers from Florida State University in 1999.

 

DPN is a direct deposition technique that utilises a very sharp needle (an atomic force microscope tip) as a pen, organic materials as ink and solid substrates as paper. In comparison to a conventional ink jet printer that has the ability to achieve a minimum feature size of approximately 10 microns (the diameter of a human hair), the current resolution of DPN (approximately 10 nanometers, a thousand times thinner than a human hair) means a revolution of direct printing technology. The principle is shown in the figure.

 

Source: Scientific American

 

Part 1 ; Part 2 ; Part 3 ; Part 4 ; Part 5