M. Hirtz, S. Sekula-Neuner, A. Urtizberea, H. Fuchs

Soft Matter Nanotechnology: From Structure to Function, first edition. X. Chen, H. Fuchs (eds.) Wiley-VCH, Weinheim (2015) 161-186

This chapter focuses on surface-bound lipid assemblies generated by two techniques, dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) and polymer pen lithography (PPL). In recent years, these two methods (and related stamping techniques based on DPN setups) have emerged into sophisticated platforms for the generation of functional lipid assemblies and supported lipid membranes. PPL emerged as a combination of DPN and microcontact printing (μCP). Lipid-DPN (L-DPN) can be analyzed and characterized in terms of liquid ink and molecular diffusion models, but both should be modified to include the particular characteristics of lipid inks absent in liquid and molecular inks, respectively. This requires incorporating the flow dynamics in liquid ink models and the 3D growth in the molecular models. The chapter provides several examples of biomimetic phospholipid structures generated via L-DPN and PPL and their application in the context of biological experiments. Multiplexing can also be achieved using PPL.