Micro Contact Printing
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Micro contact Printing (or μCP), as it will be frequently referred to in this text) uses the relief patterns on a PDMS stamp to form patterns of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of inks on the surface of a substrate through conformal contact. Micro contact printing differs from other printing methods, like inkjet printing or 3-D printing, in the use of self-assembly (especially, the use of SAMs) to form micro patterns and microstructures of various materials.
Karan Chauhan, Hyung Jun Kim and Arthur Cao Yuan of Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a prototype for the same in the summer of 2006. Their design was one of the first to deploy a reel to reel approach for printing for high volume and high quality manufacturing. It has been demonstrated that the production rate with micro contact printing will depend heavily on the ink transfer time, which further depends on the chemistries of the materials used in the process.
