[摘要]：We investigate the control of tip temperature on feature size during dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) of mercaptohexadecanoic acid (MHA) on Au. Heated atomic force microscopy (AFM) probes operated between 25 degrees C and 50 degrees C wrote nanostructures of MHA for various dwell times and tip speeds. The feature size exhibited an exponential dependence on tip temperature with an apparent activation barrier of 165 kJ/mol. Analysis of the ink transfer process shows that, while similar to 1/3 of the barrier is from ink dissolution into the meniscus, the rest reflects the barrier to adsorption onto the growing feature, a process that has been ignored in previous DPN models. VC 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3657777]
