US Patent 8163345 - Multi-coating DPN®

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8163345.html

This patent has priority going back to 1999 and includes some basic claims to processes of Dip Pen Nanolithography® pioneered by the company NanoInk. Claim 1 reads:


1. A method of nanolithography comprising:

providing a substrate;

providing a scanning probe microscope tip;

coating the tip with a patterning compound; and

contacting the coated tip with the substrate so that the compound is applied to the substrate so as to produce a desired pattern,

wherein a second compound is applied to the pattern.

US Patent 8017191 - Fast DPN® dipping

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8017191.html

This patent from NanoInk teaches how faster dipping used in Dip Pen Nanolithography® can provide better printing, including higher resolution, more reproducibility, and less wicking. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of dipping a nanoscopic probe comprising the steps of:

dipping a nanoscopic tip at a dipping rate into an inkwell comprising ink, wherein the rate of dipping is at least 10 microns/second,

refracting the nanoscopic tip at a refraction rate, wherein the retraction rate is at least 10 microns/second,

wherein the nanoscopic tip is retracted immediately after the nanoscopic tip is dipped into the inkwell.

US Patent 7997123 - Microfabricated DPN®

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7997123.html

This patent from Northwestern University teaches a manufacturing method for Dip-Pen Nanolithography® allowing for a high density 2D array of fluid dispensing microtips to be integrated on a microfluidic chip. Claim 1 reads:

1. A device, comprising a tip having a pointed tip body and an annular shell comprising an etched thin film spaced about the tip body to define an annular empty space about the tip body wherein a semiconductor chip substrate or another thin film defines the tip body.

US Patent 7887885 - Molecular resist removal with DPN

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7887885.html

This patent teaches a variation of Dip Pen Lithography® in which the scanning probe tip removes a portion of molecular resist during coating. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of nano lithography comprising:

providing a substrate;

coating at least a portion of the substrate with a resist;

providing a tip with a drop of patterning compound on the tip;

applying the tip to a portion of the substrate coated with the resist wherein a high normal force is formed between the tip and the substrate by the surface tension of the drop of patterning compound on the tip that forms a thin film of the patterning compound on the substrate in an area proximate the tip; and,

moving the tip to remove resist from the substrate, whereupon the patterning compound attaches to the substrate from which the resist has been removed by the tip to form a pattern of the patterning compound on the substrate.

US Patent 7811635 - Nanoink with inorganic precursor

http://ip.com/patent/US7811635

This latest patent from the founders of NanoInk (priority 2001) broadly covers the deposition of reactive sol-gel "inks" used in their Dip Pen Nanolithography(R) process. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of fabricating inorganic/organic nanostructures comprising depositing an ink on a substrate by direct write nanolithography with a tip to form a deposit, wherein the ink comprises an inorganic precursor and at least one organic polymer.

US Patent 7762638 - Hydrophobic barrier for microfluidic channels

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7762638.html

Over the past decade NanoInk has developed Dip Pen Nanolithography® for applications in maskless nanolithography and bioassays. This is their latest patent specifying a system of ink wells for scanning probe tips which minimize cross-contamination. Claim 1 reads:

1. A microfluidic device comprising:

a substrate comprising a surface and a plurality of microchannels which are hydrophilicly surface treated, and

at least one hydrophobic barrier layer on the surface between the microchannels which prevents cross contamination between the plurality of microchannels when liquid flows through the microchannels,

wherein the hydrophobic barrier layer is a polymeric layer.

US Patent 7744963 - Driving Dip Pen Nanolithography® with electric or magnetic force

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7744963.html

This patent from Northwestern University has priority going back to 2001 and appears basic to a driving method used by NanoInk in Dip Pen Nanolithography®. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of nanolithography, comprising:

providing a substrate;

providing a tip comprising an internal cavity having an external opening to the surface of said tip, wherein said opening comprises an internal diameter of less than about 200 nanometers;

loading said cavity with a deposition compound, wherein said deposition compound does not pass through said external opening in the absence of a driving force; and

subjecting said tip to a driving force to deliver said deposition compound through said external opening to be deposited on said substrate;

wherein the driving force is selected from the group consisting of an electrical and a magnetic driving force, wherein, for the electrical driving force, the deposition compound is a charged compound subjected to an applied electric field, and wherein, for the magnetic driving force, the deposition compound is a magnetic compound or a magnetically tagged compound subjected to a magnetic field.

US Patent 7569340 - Nanoarrays of single virus particles

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7569340.html

This patent covers an application of NanoInk's Dip Pen Nanolithography® to form arrays of binding sites for a virus which may represent the most precise and reliable way to control the positioning of a virus for study. Claim 1 reads:

1. An array comprising:

a substrate surface comprising a pattern of binding sites for a virus, wherein each binding site is surrounded by a substrate surface which does not bind virus, wherein the shape and the size of the virus binding site provides that only one virus particle is disposed on each binding site, and one virus particle disposed on each of the binding sites.

US Patent 7569252 - Dip Pen Nanolithography®

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7569252.html

The atomic force microscope was originally developed in the 1980's to scan on the nanometer and atomic level but was soon found to be useful to manipulated as well as to detect on the nanoscale. This is a basic patent to Northwestern University with priority going back to 1999 on the process of Dip Pen Nanolithography®, a type of coating process using an ultrasharp tip to transfer nanoscale patterns on a substrate which is being commercialized by NanoInk. Although not the first type of coating process using atomic force microscopes (see US Patent 5,751,683) this patent broadly covers capillary transport of fluid in nanolithography.

Claim 1 reads:

1. A nanolithographic method comprising:

providing a substrate;

providing a tip, wherein the tip is coated with a patterning compound; and

contacting the coated tip with the substrate so that the patterning compound is transported by capillary transport and anchored to the substrate so as to produce a pattern.

US Patent 7524534 - Reactive dip pen nanolithography

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7524534.html

This patent from Nanoink teaches a dip pen nanolithography method including the provision of a chemical reaction between a compound coated on the tip and another compound on a substrate. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of nanolithography comprising:

providing a substrate on which a first patterning compound has been applied;

providing a scanning probe microscope tip;

coating the tip with a second patterning compound; and

using the coated tip to apply the second patterning compound to the first patterning compound on the substrate via a transport medium so as to produce a desired pattern of the second patterning compound, wherein the second patterning compound reacts or combines with the first patterning compound.

US Patent 7491422 - Dip pen nanolithography with polymer coated tip

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7491422.html

This patent from Nanoink teaches improvements in Dip Pen Nanolithography that enhance the tip lifespan and increase the diffusion rate leading to higher speed processing.
Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of direct-write nanolithography comprising:

transporting an ink from a polymer-coated nanoscopic tip to a substrate to form a structure on the substrate,

wherein the ink comprises solvent and the structure comprises internal hollows from direct transfer of the solvent to the substrate,

wherein polymer adheres to the tip and is not transported to the substrate, and wherein the polymer is a hydrophobic elastomeric polymer having a glass transition temperature of about 25° C. or less.

US Patent 7361310 - Dip pen nanolithography of nucleic acids

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7361310.html

This is a fairly fundamental patent to Dr.Chad Mirkin's group based on using dip pen nanolithography to transfer nucleic acids to a substrate. Claim 1 reads:


1. A method for generating nanoscale patterns of nucleic acid on a substrate comprising:

modifying a scanning probe microscope tip to have a positive charge and form a modified tip;

coating the modified tip with an ink composition comprising solvent, nucleic acid and inorganic salt;

positioning the modified and coated scanning probe microscopic tip relative to a substrate so that the tip and substrate approach each other at a relative humidity sufficiently high so that nucleic acid is transferred from the tip to the substrate to form a stable nanoscale pattern on the substrate.

US Patent 7344756 - Dip pen nanolithography with patterned probe tip

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7344756.html

This is a fairly basic patent from Chad Mirkin, one of the founders of NanoInk (priority 5/16/2003) on scanning probe lithography using chemical or biological "ink" materials patterned on a probe tip for a contact printing process. The use of scanning probes to transfer atoms and molecules was actually pioneered by Don Eigler of IBM in the late 1980's and several earlier patents have been issued to the such uses of scanning probes for molecular transfer (see for example US Patent 5808311). Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for contact printing comprising: patterning a first ink on a surface of a scanning probe microscopy probe to form a first ink pattern on the surface; and positioning the surface near a first substrate, wherein the first ink pattern is transferred from the surface to the first substrate.

US Patent 7326380 - Polymerization by dip pen nanolithography

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7326380.html

This patent teaches a method for polymerization of the nanoscale using the dip pen nanolithography system developed by Nanoink. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of direct-write nanolithography comprising: a) patterning at least one first nanostructure of a polymerizable compound on a substrate; wherein the patterning is carried out with use of a tip to transport the polymerizable compound to the substrate; and wherein the patterning is a patterning of a plurality of nanostructures which are separated from each other by an average edge-to-edge distance of about a micron or less; b) adding polymerization catalyst to the nanostructure of polymerizable compound to form a second nanostructure which can initiate the polymerization reaction; and c) polymerizing monomer on the second nanostructure to form a third polymeric nanostructure; wherein the first nanostructure, the second nanostructure, and the third nanostructure have a lateral feature which is about 100 nm or less.

US Patent 7291284 - Resist coating using dip pen nanolithography

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7291284.html

Scanning probe instruments such as atomic force microscopes and near-field probes have been proposed since the 1980's for a variety of semiconductor manufacturing processes such as etching and curing of resists. Nanoink is a company that is expanding on the capability of scanning probe tools by using a process called dip pen nanolithography (DPN) that is adapted to use the tip of atomic force microscopes to transfer chemical substances with nanoscale line widths to a substrate. This patent seems fairly fundamental and captures the use of DPN in forming resist patterns for high resolution lithography processes. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of nanolithography comprising: providing a substrate and a nanoscopic or SPM tip; using the tip to apply a patterning compound from said tip to the substrate so as to produce a desired pattern which is a chemical etching resist; and chemically etching the substrate.

US Patent 7273636 - Metal oxide deposition using DPN

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7273636.html

Metal oxides are an important material for semiconductor manufacture to form a variety of structures such as contact electrodes for semiconductor devices such as FETs. This patent from NanoInk uses the technology of Dip Pen Nanolithography to pattern precursor material for metal oxides. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of nanolithography comprising: providing a substrate, providing a nanoscopic tip having an inking composition thereon, wherein the inking composition comprises at least one metal oxide precursor; transferring the inking composition from the nanoscopic tip to the substrate to form a deposit on the substrate comprising at least one metal oxide precursor.

US Patent 7223438 - DPN patterning of magnetic nanoparticles

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7223438.html

Nanoink is a company that is exploiting a new lithography process called Dip Pen Nanolithography (DPN) invented at Northwestern University and which uses a water meniscus to transfer material from an atomic force microscope tip to a substrate. This patent appears fundamental to the use of DPN in patterning magnetic nanostructures which is useful to a variety of sensor and high density memory applications. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of forming a magnetic nanostructure comprising: depositing a magnetic nanostructure precursor on a substrate from a nanoscopic tip; and converting the precursor to form the magnetic nanostructure on the substrate.