Abstract
The production by injection molding of polymeric components having micro- and nanometrical surfaces is a complex task. Generally, the accurate replication of micro- and nanometrical features on the polymeric surface during the injection-molding process is prevented by of the low mold temperature adopted to reduce cooling time. In this work, we adopt a system that allows fast heating of the cavity surface during the time the melt reaches the cavity, and fast cooling after heater deactivation. A nickel insert with micro- and nanofeatures in relief is located on the cavity surface. Replication accuracy is analyzed by Atomic Force Microscopy under different injection-molding conditions. Two grades of polylactic acid with different viscosity have been adopted. The results indicate that the higher the cavity surface temperature is, the higher the replication accuracy is. The viscosity has a significant effect only in the replication of the microfeatures, whereas its effect results are negligible in the replication of nanofeatures, thus suggesting that the interfacial phenomena are more important for replication at a nanometric scale. The evolution of the crystallinity degree on the surface also results in a key factor on the replication of nanofeatures.
Highlights
Nanoscale technologies, advanced microfabrication, and postprocessing modification techniques support the realization of a wide range of two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) objects that can be adopted in several fields, from electronic to biomedical [1,2,3,4,5]
The results indicate that the higher the cavity surface temperature is, the higher the replication accuracy is
The system adopted to modulate the temperature on the cavity surface during the injection-molding process has been demonstrated as efficient in the enhancing of replication accuracy of both micro- and nanofeatures
Summary
Nanoscale technologies, advanced microfabrication, and postprocessing modification techniques support the realization of a wide range of two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) objects that can be adopted in several fields, from electronic to biomedical [1,2,3,4,5]. The micro- and nanostructured surfaces can improve cell adhesion during cell growth in tissue engineering [6,7] They open the possibility to produce surfaces with super-hydrophobic characteristics without additional coating processes [8,9]. The techniques adopted for the production of micro- and nanostructured surfaces can be briefly summarized in two categories: bottom–up and top–down approaches. The most common top–down approaches are lithography-based techniques such as soft lithography, e-beam lithography, and nanoimprint lithography [14,15,16,17] Both the mentioned approaches require high cost, and long processing times. There is only limited control over surface properties This makes the application of these techniques difficult in the production of large-area micro- and nanostructured surfaces
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