Glossary: Soft lithography

Soft lithography describes a group of novel patterning techniques, such as microcontact printing, microtransfer patterning and liquid embossing, which offer easy, fast, and cheap reproduction of down to sub-micron sized features on large area. These methods can in principle be utilized for depositing or patterning metallic and non-metallic materials even on curved or flexible substrates in a few or just a single simple processing step.