Nanoink has installed a high precision Dip Pen Nanolithography 5000 (DPN 5000) system at the University of Strathclyde's Centre for Molecular Nanometrology.
Combining high-resolution lithography with imaging capability, the new instrument will expand the group's nanotechnology toolkit and help it move towards in vivo imaging approaches based on functional nanoparticles and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) analysis.
Nanoink's instrumentation can place nanoscale features directly onto existing microstructures.
The SERS substrate, Klarite, is an array of gold-coated, microscale inverted pyramids designed to provide more consistent SERS data.
The Centre for Molecular Nanometrology has used Nanoink's instrumentation to precisely and controllably deposit materials to the individual pyramids.
This combination of DPN and SERS is one of the few ways of extracting spectroscopic data from nanoscale patterns.
Following this early success with DPN, the group is applying Nanoink's instruments to its other research interests.
For example it is using the NLP 2000 to create large area nanoscale arrays of biomolecules, nanoparticles and SAM molecules.
The team has shown it can fabricate highly sensitive protein assays, ultimately leading to the development of new devices that could revolutionise the detection of cancer biomarkers.
