An overview of the recent work by the present authors in the development of electric droplet lithography, which is a method used to pattern materials by using water micro-droplets dispersed in a non-polar oil, is provided. The droplets contain water-soluble materials and are electrostatically attracted to arbitrarily designed nanoscale charge patterns on solid surfaces such as silicon dioxide or various polymers. The droplets then deposit their content on these patterns. The whole patterning process is independent of the surface or of the actual nature of the material to be deposited. This gives the method great potential in microfabrication applications for future biosensors or microarrays, involving soft or delicate biological materials, which would otherwise not be possible with conventional techniques.
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