Nanolithography through mixture of block copolymer micelles

Mapping the thermal entrenchment behavior of Pd nanoparticles on planar SiO2 supports

Thermal treatment of metal nanoparticles at temperatures above 1000 °C leads to the formation of nanopores in amorphous SiO₂ planar supports. In this work, we employ Pd/SiO₂ as a model system to investigate how the initial size and distribution of nanoparticles on the SiO₂ surface affects the behavior of the nanoparticles at high temperatures with respect to the formation of nanopores and related structures. We also examine the role of physical processing parameters such as heating temperature, ramp rate, and heating time in altering the type, size, and number density of features formed. These studies reveal that nanopore formation competes with other surface phenomena, including nanoparticle agglomeration and encapsulation, which also occur at high temperatures. We establish that the dominant behavior, among the many competing phenomena occurring at the metal-oxide interface, depends on the initial surface distribution of the nanoparticles. Using this knowledge, we show that the final nanopore diameter and surface density are highly tunable.

Micellization of poly(2-vinylpyrridine)-b-poly(cyclohexyl methacrylate) (P2VP-b-PCHMA) block copolymers and their interpolymer complex formation in non-aqueous medium

HYPOTHESIS

The interpolymer complex formation between poly(vinylpyridine)-based polymers with poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), in aqueous or organic medium, is driven by the hydrogen-bonding complexation. Well-defined nanostructures, with specific practical applications, may be obtained by taking advantage of such non-covalent interactions.

EXPERIMENTS

Poly(2-vinylpyridine)-b-poly(cyclohexyl methacrylate) (P2VP-b-PCHMA) and poly(2-vinylpyridine)-b-poly(t-butyl methacrylate)-b-poly(cyclohexyl methacrylate) (P2VP-b-PtBuMA-b-PCHMA) copolymers were synthesized by sequential anionic polymerization. Their micellar characteristics were examined as a function of their molecular characteristics in methylcyclohexane and toluene respectively, as cycloaliphatic and aromatic solvents for the selective solubilization of the PCHMA sequence. The size of interpolymer complexes was determined by DLS, in 1,4 dioxane, and their structural composition was characterized by ¹H NMR.

FINDINGS

The scaling relationship between the molecular composition and the micellar characteristics, such as particle size and aggregation number, could be established for the PCHMA-based copolymers in methylcyclohexane. It was further demonstrated that controlled micellization in 1,4 dioxane, as a non-selective organic solvent, could be achieved by hydrogen bond type interpolymer complex formation between P2VP-b-PCHMA and PAA-b-PCHMA under stoichiometric P2VP/PAA conditions. Finally, the size of the PCHMA-b-PAA/P2VP block copolymer/homopolymer complexes as well as of the PCHMA-b-PAA/PCHMA-b-P2VP block copolymer/block copolymer complexes was correlated with the molecular characteristics of the copolymers.

High-throughput micro-nanostructuring by microdroplet inkjet printing

The production of micrometer-sized structures comprised of nanoparticles in defined patterns and densities is highly important in many fields, ranging from nano-optics to biosensor technologies and biomaterials. A well-established method to fabricate quasi-hexagonal patterns of metal nanoparticles is block copolymer micelle nanolithography, which relies on the self-assembly of metal-loaded micelles on surfaces by a dip-coating or spin-coating process. Using this method, the spacing of the nanoparticles is controlled by the size of the micelles and by the coating conditions. Whereas block copolymer micelle nanolithography is a high-throughput method for generating well-ordered nanoparticle patterns at the nanoscale, so far it has been inefficient in generating a hierarchical overlay structure at the micrometer scale. Here, we show that by combining block copolymer micelle nanolithography with inkjet printing, hierarchical patterns of gold nanoparticles in the form of microstructures can be achieved in a high-throughput process. Inkjet printing was used to generate droplets of the micelle solution on surfaces, resulting in printed circles that contain patterns of gold nanoparticles with an interparticle spacing between 25 and 42 nm. We tested this method on different silicon and nickel-titanium surfaces and the generated patterns were found to depend on the material type and surface topography. Based on the presented strategy, we were able to achieve patterning times of a few seconds and produce quasi-hexagonal micro-nanopatterns of gold nanoparticles on smooth surfaces. Hence, this method is a high-throughput method that can be used to coat surfaces with nanoparticles in a user-defined pattern at the micrometer scale. As the nanoparticles provide a chemical contrast on the surface, they can be further functionalized and are therefore highly relevant for biological applications.