Soft lithography

In technology, soft lithography refers to a set of methods for fabricating or replicating structures using "elastomeric stamps, molds, and conformable photomasks" (in the words of Rogers and Nuzzo, p. 50, as cited in "References"). It is called "soft" because it uses elastomeric materials. Soft lithography is generally used to construct features measured on the nanometer scale. Unlike photolithography and electron beam lithography, soft lithography is well-suited for applications in biotechnology, plastic electronics, and applications involving large or nonplanar surfaces. According to Rogers and Nuzzo (2005), development of soft lithography expanded rapidly during the period 1995 to 2005.

Soft lithography includes the technologies of microcontact printing (mCP), replica molding (REM), microtransfer molding (mTM), micromolding in capillaries (MIMIC) and solvent-assisted micromolding (SAMIM). (From Xia et al.)

The technique is notable for its low cost compared to traditional photolithography.

References

• Xia, Y. and Whitesides, G. M., (1998) Soft Lithography. In Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 37, 551–575.[1]
• Xia, Y. and Whitesides, G. M., (1998) Soft Lithography. In Annu. Rev. Mater. Sci. 28, 153–184.
• Quake, S. R. & Scherer, A. (2000, November 24). From micro- to nanofabrication with soft materials. In Issues in nanotechnology. In Science, 290, 1536 – 1540.
• Rogers, J. A. & Nuzzo, R. G. (2005, February). Recent progress in soft lithography. In Materials today, 8, 50 – 56.

External Links

• Whitesides research group at Harvard University [2]

• Xia research group at the University of Washington [3]