Dip Pen Nanolithography

What is DPN?

 Dip Pen Nanolithography (DPN) is a direct write, tip based lithography technique capable of multi-component deposition of a wide range of materials with nanoscale registry. DPN can fabricate multiplexed, customized patterns with feature sizes as small as 50 nm or as big as 10 µm on a variety of substrates including glass, plastic, gold and silicon. Using arrays of “pen” tips, these features can be printed over large areas, with pattern design and fabrication often taking less than an hour to complete. DPN is a powerful yet simple-to-use benchtop technology that delivers direct write patterning capabilities without the need for a cleanroom, master stamp or photomask. With the ability to operate under ambient conditions and deposit features with sub-cellular resolution, DPN can successfully print organic, inorganic, and biological materials (including proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, hydrogels, alkanethiols, silanes, polymers and nanoparticles) in complex user-defined patterns. Features generated by DPN are very uniform, so assays constructed with these features deliver exceptional reproducibility.