Printing With Enzymes 43
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at Duke University have developed a new printing technique using catalysts to create microdevices such as labs-on-a-chip. Their inkless printing technique uses enzymes from E. coli bacteria and has an accuracy of less than 2 nanometers. While they're are now using enzymes to stamp nanopatterns without ink, the research team is already working with non-enzymatic catalysts. And it added that 'future versions of the inkless technique could be used to build complex nanoscale devices with unprecedented precision.'"
Least accuracy? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Osama Bin Lexmark (Score:3, Informative)
Dot's all! (Score:2, Informative)
Bert
the actual reference... (Score:5, Informative)
The actual scientific paper appears to be this one:
Phillip W. Snyder, Matthew S. Johannes, Briana N. Vogen, Robert L. Clark, and Eric J. Toone, "Biocatalytic Microcontact Printing [acs.org]" J. Org. Chem., 72 (19), 7459 -7461, 2007 DOI: 10.1021/jo0711541 [doi.org]
They use confocal fluorescence which is, as you note, diffraction limited. However for the high-resolution study of the line-edges, they use Atomic Force Microscopy [wikipedia.org] which is of course much higher resolution. The AFM images they show, however, appear to have rather imperfect line-edges, with resolution of >200 nm. Actually, nowhere in the paper do they claim to have demonstrated 2 nm resolution. Rather, they point out in the introduction that their new technique, in principle, could allow higher-resolution printing that conventional soft lithography, because there is no diffusion of reagents in their technique. The news release focuses on this mention of a theoretical 2 nm resolution, rather than pointing out the actual accomplishment of the paper, which in the words of the authors is: So, in short, it's an important advancement but the authors are not claiming to have achieved the intended ultra-high-resolution yet. And, even without that optimistic resolution, the technique is interesting in its own right because it is a new way to control the nanoscale chemical patterning of surfaces.
Re:To the Roland haters. (Score:3, Informative)
I guess it's just because he keeps summerising articles, adding nothing, introducing errors or misunderstandings, all for the purpose of interposing his ads and site-stat boosting in between us and the original article. ohnoitsroland is my favourite tag ever and I consider it a service to us all if someone can get a link to the original article in quickly near the top of the comments.