The power of the pen: Development of massively parallel dip-pen nanolithography

If one had complete control of the architecture of a surface, in terms of composition and physical structure, one could ask and answer some of the most important scientific questions in a wide variety of fields, including surface science, catalysis, and cellular biology. Unfortunately, there are few tools that allow one to tailor surface architecture with such control, and of those that exist, such as electron- and ion-beam lithographies, most are limited in terms of the environment in which they can operate, the materials that can be patterned, cost, and throughput. Toward this end, important new scanning probe technologies have been developed that have impacted fields such as electronics, optics, and medicine.