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Soft lithography for micro- and nanoscale patterning

Nature Protocols volume 5, pages 491–502 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

This protocol provides an introduction to soft lithography—a collection of techniques based on printing, molding and embossing with an elastomeric stamp. Soft lithography provides access to three-dimensional and curved structures, tolerates a wide variety of materials, generates well-defined and controllable surface chemistries, and is generally compatible with biological applications. It is also low in cost, experimentally convenient and has emerged as a technology useful for a number of applications that include cell biology, microfluidics, lab-on-a-chip, microelectromechanical systems and flexible electronics/photonics. As examples, here we focus on three of the commonly used soft lithographic techniques: (i) microcontact printing of alkanethiols and proteins on gold-coated and glass substrates; (ii) replica molding for fabrication of microfluidic devices in poly(dimethyl siloxane), and of nanostructures in polyurethane or epoxy; and (iii) solvent-assisted micromolding of nanostructures in poly(methyl methacrylate).

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Schematic illustration of the procedures for fabricating normal PDMS (left panel) and h-/PDMS (right panel) stamps, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 4: Photographs of the dessicator used to treat the surface of the master with TFOCS vapor.
Figure 5: Photographs of four major stages involved in the fabrication of PDMS stamps.
Figure 6: Photographs of three major steps involved in μCP of alkanethiol on gold, which is evaporated as a thin film on a silicon substrate with 5–10 nm titanium (for e-beam evaporation) or chromium (for e-beam or thermal evaporation) as the adhesion layer: left, initiating contact between the PDMS stamp and the gold surface from the edge with an angle to avoid trapping air bubbles between them; middle, leaving the stamp in contact with gold for 10 s; and right, separating the stamp from the gold surface.
Figure 7: Three typical examples of micro- and nanostructures fabricated using soft lithography.

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Acknowledgements

Both Washington University and Harvard University are members of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), which is supported by the National Science Foundation under award no. ECS-0335765.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nano Research Facility and Department of Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

    Dong Qin

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

    Younan Xia

  3. Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    George M Whitesides

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  1. Dong Qin
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  2. Younan Xia
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  3. George M Whitesides
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Contributions

D.Q. is responsible for all the experiments described in this article and preparation of the paper; Y.X. is partially responsible for experimental planning and preparation of the paper; and G.M.W. is responsible for providing guidance for the experiments and for editing and proofreading the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to George M Whitesides.

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Qin, D., Xia, Y. & Whitesides, G. Soft lithography for micro- and nanoscale patterning. Nat Protoc 5, 491–502 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2009.234

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