Directed assembly are a generic and simple means to produce designed structures in three-dimensions (3D). The printing is achieved by extruding printing materials through a nozzle, which provides a platform to deliver a wide range of materials. Although this method has been routinely used for 3D printing at macroscopic scales, miniaturization to micrometer and nanometer scales and building hierarchical structures at multidimensional scales represent new challenges in research and development. This presentations addresses these challenges by combining the spatial precision of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and local delivery capability of microfluidics. Specialized AFM probes serve dual roles of a microscopy tip and a delivery tool, enabling the miniaturization of 3D printing <i>via</i> direct material delivery. Various designed 3D structures of chosen materials were produced, whose spatial precision is among the highest in 3D printing. The results clearly demonstrate the feasibility of achieving 3D nanoprinting with nanometer feature size and accuracy with practical throughput and overall size. This work paves the way for advanced applications of 3D hierarchical nanostructures.

Directed assembly for three-dimensional nanoprinting

256th National Meeting (2018)

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