High-speed microcontact printing

We have demonstrated microcontact printing (μCP) of self-assembled monolayers in the millisecond regime. The contact formation and separation of the stamp and substrate was studied with high-speed video recordings. Using high ink concentrations and contact times as short as 1 ms, we printed monolayers of hexadecanethiol on Au, which served as a selective etch resist. High-speed μCP yields defect-free monolayers that are independent of the dimensions of the printed patterns, have high contrast between printed and unprinted areas, and enable perfect reproducibility of prints. Copyright © 2006 American Chemical Society.