Effect of affinity between the stamp and ink molecules on micro contact printing

In this paper, we experimentally highlight the affinity of the stamp and ink molecules, or self-assembled monolayer (SAM) in micro contact printing. We found that in a short contacting time, the ink molecules were not fully transferred from the stamp to the substrate. This is considered to be affected by the affinity of the molecules with the stamp. In order to investigate this phenomenon, we prepared several types of SAM, and stamps made of PDMS and PDMS covered with parylene. We used the diffusion coefficient to characterize the increase in the patterning area and experiments showed the coefficient differed with both ink molecules and stamps. This knowledge will be of great help for accurate micro contact printing.