text: A heated probe tip version of Dip Pen Lithography has also been demonstrated, thermal Dip Pen Lithography (tDPL), to deposit nanoparticles. Semiconductor, magnetic, metallic, or optically active nanoparticles can be written to a substrate via this method. The particles are suspended in a Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) or equivalent polymer matrix, and heated by the probe tip until they begin to flow. The probe tip acts as a nano-pen, and can pattern nanoparticles into a programmed structure. Depending on the size of the nanoparticles, resolutions of 78–400 nm were attained. An O plasma etch can be used to remove the PMMA matrix, and in the case of Iron Oxide nanoparticles, further reduce the resolution of lines to 10 nm. Advantages unique to tDPL are that it is a maskless additive process that can achieve very narrow resolutions, it can also easily write many types of nanoparticles without requiring special solution preparation techniques. However there are limitations to this method. The nanoparticles must be smaller than the radius of gyration of the polymer, in the case of PMMA this is about 6 nm. Additionally, as nanoparticles increase in size viscosity increases, slowing the process. For a pure polymer deposition speeds of 200 μm/s are achievable. Adding nanoparticles reduces speeds to 2 μm/s, but is still faster than regular Dip Pen Lithography.