| Nanolithography involves making patterns of materials with at least one dimension less than 100 nanometers. Surprisingly, writable CDs can provide polymer nanostructures for pennies a piece. Building on work previously done in the Drain lab, with an inherited home-built oven press, this research will explore the relationships between polymer chemical reactivity, polymer printing, and material surface energies. In addition, a relatively inexpensive entry point into high school and undergraduate education in nanolithography is presented. The ability to pattern cheaply at the nanoscale and microscale is necessary and attractive for many technologies towards biosensors, organic light emitting diodes, identification tags, layered devices, and transistors. |
