| Dip Pen Nanolithography (DPN) is a method for creating nanoscale chemical structures on surfaces with sub-100nm dimensions using the atomic force microscope (AFM). The power of DPN comes from the wide range of compounds it can pattern. These include organic and inorganic chemicals, DNA, proteins, metals, virus particles, sol-gel precursors, conductive polymers, and magnetic nanostructures. The commercial AFMs used for DPN are research-scale tools. They use single probes at "write" speeds of 0.1--5mum/sec, resulting in an extremely low pattern generation rate. To realize the full potential of DPN on an industrial scale, pattern throughput must increase dramatically.; The goal of this research is to evaluate options for improving throughput using AFM probe enhancement and parallelization. Multi-probe arrays increase throughput by performing deposition at many locations simultaneously. Active probe arrays, where each probe contains an actuator that can remove its tip from the surface, enhance this capability by allowing different probes to write different patterns while following the same global path.; The multi-probe arrays created here have as many as 32 identical probes with tip-to-tip spacing ranging from 30mum to 100mum. Thermal bimetallic, piezoelectric, and electrostatic array actuation concepts were developed and compared. For the thermally actuated arrays, a detailed thermomechanical model was developed and used as the basis of a rapid simulation scheme for optimizing the actuator layout.; Out of five array concepts attempted, three are practical and were demonstrated using lithography. Several packaging schemes were developed and used to install the arrays in AFMs modified for multi-probe applications. The arrays were used to write patterns of 1-octadecanethiol on gold surfaces with line widths as small as 25nm, write speeds as fast as 20mum/sec, and up to four patterns overlapping the same region. |
