Fast Fabrication of Sub-200-nm Nanogrooves Using Liquid Crystal Material.
Self-assembly of soft materials attracts keen interest for patterning applications owing to its ease and spontaneous behavior. We report the fabrication of nanogrooves using sublimation and recondensation of liquid crystal (LC) materials. First, well-aligned smectic LC structures are obtained on the micron-scale topographic patterns of the microchannel; then, the sublimation and recondensation process directly produces nanogrooves having sub-200-nm scale. The entire process can be completed in less than 30 min. After it is replicated using an ultraviolet-curable polymer, our platform can be used as an alignment layer to control other guest LC materials.
Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, KAIST , Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea.
Dae Seok
DS
Kim
Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, KAIST , Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea.
Yun Jeong
YJ
Cha
Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, KAIST , Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea.
Min-Jun
MJ
Gim
Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, KAIST , Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea.
Dong Ki
DK
Yoon
alignment layer; liquid crystal; nanogrooves; sublimation and recondensation; topographic patterns