Materials Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 16802, USA.
Bioinspir Biomim. 2010 Sep;5(3):036001. doi: 10.1088/1748-3182/5/3/036001. Epub 2010 Jul 22.
Motivated to develop a technique for producing many high-fidelity replicas for the sacrifice of a single biotemplate, we combined a modified version of the conformal-evaporated-film-by-rotation technique and electroforming to produce a master negative made of nickel from a composite biotemplate comprising several corneas of common blowflies. This master negative can function as either a mold for casting multiple replicas or a die for stamping multiple replicas. An approximately 250 nm thick nickel film was thermally deposited on an array of blowfly corneas to capture the surface features with high fidelity and then a roughly 60 microm thick structural layer of nickel was electroformed onto the thin layer to give it the structural integrity needed for casting or stamping. The master negative concurrently captured the spatial features of the biotemplate at length scales ranging from 200 nm to a few millimeters. Polymer replicas produced thereafter by casting did faithfully reproduce features of a few micrometers and larger in dimension.
受启发于开发一种技术，用于生产大量高保真复制品，牺牲一个单一的生物模板，我们将经过改良的旋涂热蒸发薄膜复制技术与电铸技术相结合，用由几只普通绿头苍蝇的角膜组成的复合生物模板制作出一个镍制的主负模。这个主负模既可以用作铸造多个复制品的模具，也可以用作冲压多个复制品的冲模。我们先在一组苍蝇角膜上热沉积了一层约 250nm 厚的镍膜，以高保真度捕捉表面特征，然后再在这层薄膜上电铸出大约 60 微米厚的镍结构层，赋予它用于铸造或冲压所需的结构完整性。主负模同时捕捉到了生物模板在从 200nm 到几毫米的长度尺度上的空间特征。此后通过铸造得到的聚合物复制品真实地再现了几微米及更大尺寸的特征。
