Link: Technology Review: Printing Nano Building Blocks .
Researchers from IBM's Zurich Research Lab have devised a way to print particles as small as 60 nanometers in diameter with single-particle resolution. The technique lets researchers arrange tiny particles of various materials into well-defined structures on a surface–a step necessary for the mass production of devices such as nanowire transistors, biomedical sensors, and flexible, ultrasmall lenses capable of bending light. (((Lithography has traditionally been pretty cheap, so I'd be guessing we're going to see some interesting surface-printing applications here that are a lot more everyday and immediate than the usual nano-hoopla.)))
"This is a very precise and efficient technique for taking nanoparticles with interesting properties and arranging them in an orderly fashion onto a surface," says Tobias Kraus, a researcher on the IBM nano-patterning team. The group details its findings in a paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
To create an imprint, the IBM team first makes a template with grooves or holes only tens of nanometers deep and shaped in a desired pattern. Then the researchers move a liquid suspension containing nanoparticles over the template; the particles fill the shallow grooves or holes.
After the liquid dries, the team takes the template and presses it onto a substrate that has been prepared with a strong adhesive on its surface. The key step in the process is to ensure a difference in the strength of adhesives on the two surfaces: since the particles adhere better to a polymer layer on the substrate, they don't stick to the original template once it's removed. The result is a printed structure composed of single nanoparticles on the substrate....
