Microcontact Printed Monolayers inspected with Imaging Ellipsometry and Scanning Probe Microscopy

For the production of microstructures Microcontact Printing is a simple an cheap alternative to the rather complicated and expensive Photolithography. By means of Microcontact Printing SAMs (selfassembled monolayers), e.g. a thiol can be printed on a suitable substrate, e.g. gold. The SAM protects the surface from being etched when in a next step the surface is etched to produce a lateral structure. The chemical function of a thiol depends on its functional groups, which can be modified. In that way the surface can be modified to bind particular classes of molecules. Microcontact Printing of SAMs can produce Microarrays carrying thousands of different sensor properties within one cm². Microarrays are applicable in Genomics and Proteomics in biotechnology. Imaging ellipsometry is cheap, fast, and marker-free detection method on Microarrays

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