Microcontact Printing

Abstract

This is the review paper on microcontact printing (μCP), the first paper of which was published in 1993 by Kumar and Whitesides (Appl. Phys. Lett., 63, 2002-2004 (1993)). Since 1993, there have been about 500 papers citing this paper, and the number of which per year is still increasing. This reflects enormous potential and wide application of this new technology. In this review, followings are described i) back ground of the birth of μCP including development of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), ii) initial studies of pattering SAMs, iii) patterning SAMs by μCP, iv) application of patterned SAMs, v) soft lithography other than μCP, vi) patterning with liquids and its application to nanostructuring, and vii) the outlook for μCP.