Large-Area Nanoscale Patterning of Functional Materials by Nanomolding in Capillaries

Within the past years there has been much effort in developing and improving new techniques for the nanoscale patterning of functional materials used in promising applications like nano(opto)electronics. Here a high-resolution soft lithography technique—nanomolding in capillaries (NAMIC)—is demonstrated. Composite PDMS stamps with sub-100 nm features are fabricated by nanoimprint lithography to yield nanomolds for NAMIC. NAMIC is used to pattern different functional materials such as fluorescent dyes, proteins, nanoparticles, thermoplastic polymers, and conductive polymers at the nanometer scale over large areas. These results show that NAMIC is a simple, versatile, low-cost, and high-throughput nanopatterning tool.