International Business Machines Corporation

Swisslitho Ag

Colin Rawlings

Armin W Knoll

Michael Skaug

Christian Michael Schwemmer

Stefan Fringes

Felix Holzner

Philip Paul

Michael Zientek

Michal Zientek

Embodiments of the invention include a microfluidic device, which comprises a substrate with a channel defined therein, on an upper surface of the substrate, wherein a bottom wall of the channel comprises several contiguous steps having an asymmetric profile along a main direction of the channel, so as to form a ratchet topography. The device further comprises a lid, opposite to and at a distance from the upper surface of the substrate, so as to face the bottom wall of the channel. The bottom wall and the lid are designed to allow like sign charges to accumulate thereat, in presence of a polar liquid confined in the channel between the bottom wall and the lid, so as to allow displacement of nanoscale particles in the polar liquid, along said main direction of the channel, under application of an alternating force to said nanoscale particles, in operation of the device.

Microfluidic ratchets for displacing particles

A scanning probe nanolithography system comprising a probe to create nanostructures line () by line through writing said nanostructures () pixel by pixel along lines () on a sample. A positioning system is adapted to provide a positioning of the probe at a sequence of predetermined positions to the sample and its surface towards the probe and a control unit () is provided to control the positioning system for positioning the probe for a pixel-wise writing of said lines () through a writing unit. It further comprises a sensor unit adapted to detect a predetermined property of the written nanostructure (), the sensor unit being connected to the control unit to adapt the control signals to be provided to the writing unit for writing the following line () based on the measured signals () of the predetermined property.

Scanning probe nanolithography system and method

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Adliswil, Switzerland

Colin Rawlings