Abstract
Replica molding often induces tribocharge on elastomers. To date, this phenomenon has been studied only on untextured elastomer surfaces even though replica molding is an effective method for their nanotexturing. Here we show that on elastomer surfaces nanotextured through replica molding the induced tribocharge also becomes patterned at nanoscale in close correlation with the nanotexture. By applying Kelvin probe microscopy, electrohydrodynamic lithography, and electrostatic analysis to our model nanostructure, poly(dimethylsiloxane) nanocup arrays replicated from a polycarbonate nanocone array, we reveal that the induced tribocharge is highly localized within the nanocup, especially around its rim. Through finite element analysis, we also find that the rim sustains the strongest friction during the demolding process. From these findings, we identify the demolding-induced friction as the main factor governing the tribocharge’s nanoscale distribution pattern. By incorporating the resulting annular tribocharge into electrohydrodynamic lithography, we also accomplish facile realization of nanovolcanos with 10 nm-scale craters.
Highlights
Replica molding often induces tribocharge on elastomers
Since the resulting tribocharge distribution is below the range of direct imaging, we adopt indirect approaches which pair experimental techniques, such as scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM) and electrohydrodynamic lithography (EHDL), with iterative numerical modeling
We adopt arrayed PDMS nanocups replicated from a polycarbonate (PC) nanocone array (Fig. 1a)
Summary
Replica molding often induces tribocharge on elastomers. To date, this phenomenon has been studied only on untextured elastomer surfaces even though replica molding is an effective method for their nanotexturing. We find that the rim sustains the strongest friction during the demolding process From these findings, we identify the demoldinginduced friction as the main factor governing the tribocharge’s nanoscale distribution pattern. The ensuing studies revealed that the level of tribocharging is strong enough to influence some microfluidic functionalities, such as channel electrophoresis[14,15,16] This replica moldinginduced tribocharging phenomenon has been studied only on flat, untextured elastomer surfaces. It is rather ironic since replica molding is the primary method for surface texturing of the PDMS. This work establishes a useful application for the resulting ringshaped tribocharge by configuring it to enable EHDL to build nanovolcanos with 10 nm-scale nanocraters, a center-dimpled 3D nanostructure
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