Soft lithography

Figure 1 - "Inking" a stamp. PDMS stamp with pattern is placed in Ethanol and ODT (octadecanethiol) solution
Figure 2 - ODT from the solution settles down onto the PDMS stamp. Stamp now has ODT attached to it which acts as the ink.
Figure 3 - The PDMS stamp with the ODT is placed on the gold substrate. When the stamp is removed, the ODT in contact with the gold stays stuck to the gold. Thus the pattern from the stamp is transferred to the gold via the ODT "ink."

In technology, soft lithography is a family of techniques for fabricating or replicating structures using "elastomeric stamps, molds, and conformable photomasks".[1] It is called "soft" because it uses elastomeric materials, most notably PDMS.

Soft lithography is generally used to construct features measured on the micrometer to nanometer scale. According to Rogers and Nuzzo (2005), development of soft lithography expanded rapidly from 1995 to 2005. Soft lithography tools are now commercially available.[2]

  1. ^ In the words of Rogers and Nuzzo, p. 50, as cited in "Further reading"
  2. ^ "Research Micro Stamps: Commercially available micro stamps on tv". RMS. Retrieved 2017-01-17.