The effects of organic vapor on alkanethiol deposition via dip-pen nanolithography

Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) is a scanning probe-based technique that allows for direct delivery of molecules to a range of substrates with sub-50 nm resolution. This study describes the effect of organic solvent vapor on the deposition rate and feature size of nanostructures deposited via DPN. The transport rate of model molecular inks, 1-octadecanethiol, and 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid were examined under atmospheres of ethanol, methanol, hexane, and dichloromethane. In all cases, presence of an organic vapor increased deposition rate and feature size, in some cases by an order of magnitude. This underscores how the environment can be used to regulate molecular transport rates in a DPN experiment.