Creation and measurement of nanodots with combined dynamic mode 'dip-pen' nanolithography based on atomic force microscope

Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN), based on atomic force microscope (AFM) system, is an effective method for nanoscale science and engineering and the potential applications of DPN feature in the fields of nanomechanics, nanomaterials, nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine and combined dynamic mode DPN, rather than the often used contact mode DPN or the tapping mode DPN, becomes an important tool for the creation of nanodots with the direct writing method of depositing the ink onto the hard silicon surface at the predetermined position with a very high resolution, which is presented in the corresponding experiments. For a better nanolithography quality of the nanodot, the nanolithography process, under the optimised process parameters, is accomplished once without the intermediate scan imaging process as much as possible. In addition, the size of the nanodots subsequently decreases with the increase of the number of the nanodots in the case of the AFM tip dipping in ink once. Consequently, for the creation of a nanodot within the controllable mass, the measurement scheme about the deposition mass of ink, theoretically analysed and experimentally achieved in the aspect of quantification, is also proposed in this Letter.