Northwestern University

Fengwei Huo

Chad A Mirkin

Gengfeng Zheng

Zijian Zheng

Savka Ilieva Stoeva

Jae-Seung Lee

The disclosure relates to methods of printing indicia on a substrate using a tip array comprised of elastomeric, compressible polymers. The tip array can be prepared using conventional photolithographic methods and can be tailored to have any desired number and/or arrangement of tips. Numerous copies (e.g., greater than 15,000, or greater than 11 million) of a pattern can be made in a parallel fashion in as little as 40 minutes.

Polymer pen lithography

The disclosure relates to methods of beam pen lithography using a tip array having a plurality of transparent, elastomeric, reversibly-deformable tips coated with a blocking layer and apertures defined in the blocking layer to expose tip ends of the tips in the array. The tip array can be used to perform a photolithography process in which the tips are illuminated with a radiation that is channeled through the tips and out the apertures to expose a photosensitive substrate. Also disclosed are tip arrays formed of polymers and gels, apparatus including the tip arrays and radiation sources, and related apparatus for selectively masking tips in the tip array from radiation emitted from the radiation source.

Beam pen lithography

Composite particles and methods of synthesizing a composite particle are disclosed, in particular, methods of synthesizing a composite particle comprising a dielectric component, a magnetic component, and a gold shell are disclosed. Further disclosed herein are methods of detecting a target compound using the composite particles of the present invention. Also disclosed are photonic crystals that can be manipulated with an external magnetic field comprising the composite particles of the present invention.

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Evanston, IL, United States of America

Fengwei Huo