Anomalous surface diffusion in nanoscale direct deposition processes

We report the first observation of anomalous diffusion in nanometer scale direct deposition processes utilizing dip-pen nanolithography (DPN). DPN permits quite general nanostructure patterns to be drawn on flat surfaces. Here we demonstrate experimentally, and discuss theoretically, the situation in which the molecular ink in DPN binds weakly to the surface. We observe, for the weak-binding case of 1-dodecylamine on mica, that anomalous diffusion occurs, leading to nearly fractal deposition patterns.