Microcontact printing
![Figure 1: PDMS master is created by patterning silicon, pouring and curing the PDMS, and peeling away from the substrate](/Images/godic/202501/27/Creating_the_PDMS_master.svg0040.png")
![Figure 2: Thiol is poured over the stamp and let dry. Conformal contact is made with the substrate and pattern is left behind.](/Images/godic/202501/27/Inking_and_contact_process.svg0040.png")
Microcontact printing (or μCP) is a form of soft lithography that uses the relief patterns on a master polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamp to form patterns of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of ink on the surface of a substrate through conformal contact as in the case of nanotransfer printing (nTP). Its applications are wide ranging including microelectronics, surface chemistry and cell biology.