Nanotransfer printing (nTP) (compare with microcontact printing) is a purely additive and high resolution metal printing technique. It mainly relies on the principle of

surface chemistry Surface science is the study of physics, physical and chemistry, chemical phenomena that occur at the interface (chemistry), interface of two phase (matter), phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum int ...

- chemically modified surfaces act as interfacial "release" or "glue" layers to aid in transfer printing nano-structured metal ink from relief features (aka "stamp") to a surface of interest. The nTP can be simply envisioned as "a process of signature stamping using rubber-stamp". In a rubber stamping, conventionally crafted signature/logo on a

rubber stamp A rubber stamp is an image or pattern that has been carved, molded, laser engraved, or vulcanized onto a sheet of rubber. Rubber stamping, also called stamping, is a craft in which some type of ink made of dye or pigment is applied to a rub ...

is transferred or replicated onto a paper surfaces using organic dye or ink while in nTP, nanolithographically created structures on silicon or PDMS "stamp" are transferred or printed on other surfaces such as glass or

polymer A polymer () is a chemical substance, substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeat unit, repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their br ...

s using metal ink. nTP has found wide applications in various areas including electronics, chemical sensing, spintronics, and plasmonics. The technique has been successfully implemented for creating various functional structures having sub-100 nm spatial resolution. It was invented by Yueh-Lin Loo.

References

Printing terminology {{Nano-tech-stub