Nanotransfer printing (nTP) (compare with

microcontact printing Microcontact printing (or μCP) is a form of soft lithography that uses the relief patterns on a master polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamp or Urethane rubber micro stamp to form patterns of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of ink on the surface ...

) is a purely additive and

high resolution Image resolution is the detail an image holds. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies how cl ...

metal printing technique. It mainly relies on the principle of

surface chemistry Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum interfaces, and liquid–gas interfaces. It includes the fiel ...

- chemically modified surfaces act as interfacial "release" or "glue" layers to aid in transfer printing nano-structured metal ink from relief features (aka "stamp") to a surface of interest. The nTP can be simply envisioned as "a process of signature stamping using rubber-stamp". In a rubber stamping, conventionally crafted signature/logo on a

rubber stamp A rubber stamp is an image or pattern that has been carved, molded, laser engraved or vulcanized onto a sheet of rubber. Rubber stamping, also called stamping, is a craft in which some type of ink made of dye or pigment is applied to rubber ...

is transferred or replicated onto a paper surfaces using

organic dye A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and ...

or ink while in nTP, nanolithographically created structures on silicon or PDMS "stamp" are transferred or printed on other surfaces such as glass or

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

s using metal ink. nTP has found wide applications in various areas including electronics, chemical sensing, spintronics, and plasmonics. The technique has been successfully implemented for creating various functional structures having sub-100 nm spatial resolution. It was invented by

Yueh-Lin Loo Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo is a Malaysian-born chemical engineer and the Theodora D. '78 and William H. Walton III '74 Professor in Engineering at Princeton University, where she is also the Director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environmen ...

References

Printing terminology {{Nano-tech-stub