Ordered morphologies in polymeric films produced by replication of convection patterns.
A new strategy for producing ordered polymeric films is proposed, which employs replication of interfacial instabilities. In the first step, a thin film of a monomeric fluid is brought in contact with a nonpolymerizable template layer of poly(dimethylsiloxane), and surface tension-driven convection is induced in the template liquid. In the second stage, Bénard cells replicated in the monomeric layer by a viscous drug are trapped in the solid state by UV-induced polymerization. Following this step, the template fluid is removed. The topographic patterns "frozen" in the polymeric film have lateral and vertical periodicity determined by the properties of the template fluid.
Xu
Shengqing
S
Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H6, Canada.
Kumacheva
Eugenia
E