Professor Duncan Graham and his research group at The Centre for Molecular Nanometrology at the has taken delivery of the DPN 5000 nanolithography tool, NanoInk’s latest high precision Dip Pen Nanolithography (DPN) system. The new instrument will expand the group’s already nanotechnology toolkit and help Graham move towards in vivo imaging approaches based on functional nanoparticles and SERS analysis.

Professor Graham is a recognized leader in the field of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) and an early adopter of DPN technology, driven by the ability of NanoInk’s instrumentation to 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. Graham has demonstrated NanoInk’s unique ability 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, Graham’s lab is applying NanoInk’s instruments to the group’s other research interests. For example, they are now using the NLP 2000 to create large area nanoscale arrays of biomolecules, nanoparticles and SAM molecules. The team has shown that they can fabricate highly sensitive protein assays, ultimately leading to the development of new devices that could revolutionize the detection of cancer biomarkers.

Date: February 16, 2010
Source: NanoInk