Parallel scanning near-field photolithography in liquid: The Snomipede

  • Authors:

  • Zhuming Liu;Ehtsham ul-Haq;Jamie K. Hobbs;Graham J. Leggett;Yuan Zhang;John M. R. Weaver;Clive J. Roberts

  • Affiliations:

  • Laboratory of Biophysics and Surface Analysis, The School of Pharmacy, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK;Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Hicks Building, Hounsfield Road, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK;Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Hicks Building, Hounsfield Road, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK;Department of Chemistry, University of Sheffield, Brook Hill, Sheffield S3 7HF, UK;Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering Rankine Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8LT, UK;Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering Rankine Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8LT, UK;Laboratory of Biophysics and Surface Analysis, The School of Pharmacy, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK

  • Venue:
  • Microelectronic Engineering
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Scanning near-field photolithography (SNPL) has recently shown its great potential for fabricating various structures at the nanoscale. However, the low throughput of SNPL is a barrier to wider applications. Additionally, to extend SNPL to operation in aqueous environments is of significant importance to applications in nanobiology, such as sensing, screening and protein adsorption studies. Here we describe a new instrument (a ''Snomipede'') that facilitates the parallel execution of SNPL under water using an AFM-style cantilever probe array and liquid cell. A feature size (full width at half maximum (FWHM)) of around 70nm has been achieved for dot arrays fabricated in parallel under water.