title: Investigation of the role of template features on the electrically induced structure formation (EISF) for a faithful duplication.
abstract: Electrically induced structure formation, as a physical approach to fabricate micro/nanostructures, has attracted much attention because of the simple process, low-cost, high-efficiency, and wide applications on electronics, microfluidics, and so forth. Hitherto, the influence of some process parameters, such as voltage, air gap, film thickness, polymer properties, on the polymeric behavior, and the structure formation has been explored, neglecting the effects of the template features, which affect the polymer deformation. Especially for the conductive protrusions directly contacting the polymer, the phenomenon of electric breakdown may occur, leading to a failure of structure formation. The limitation of the research on the template features triggers the necessity to study its influence for a faithful deformation. In this paper, three types of patterned template are studied based on the electric field at the air-polymer interface, consisting of completely conductive template, partially conductive template, and dielectric template. Comprehensive consideration of the electric intensity for a sufficient driving pressure and the leaky current for preventing damaging the polymer, some guiding opinions on the template material and geometry can be provided to design the patterned template for the electrically induced structure formation process with a purpose for a faithful structure.
authors.affiliation: Micro- and Nano-Technology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, P. R. China.|Key Laboratory of High Performance Complex Manufacturing, Central South University, Changsha, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Hongmiao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Micro- and Nano-Technology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jinyou
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: Micro- and Nano-Technology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xiaoliang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Micro- and Nano-Technology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Micro- and Nano-Technology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Micro- and Nano-Technology Research Center, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yucheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ding
mesh_terms: D004560:Electricity; D004581:Electronics / Q000295:instrumentation; D004867:Equipment Design / Q000379:methods*; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000295:instrumentation; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D011108:Polymers
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers
keywords: Electrically induced structure formation; Liquid dielectrophoresis; Microfluidics; Patterned template