Choi Jaeho, Kang Hong Suk, Jo Wonhee, Kim Hee-Tak
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Daejeon 305-701 Republic of Korea
Interface Materials and Chemical Engineering Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology Daejeon 34114 Republic of Korea.
RSC Adv. 2020 May 27;10(34):20197-20201. doi: 10.1039/d0ra02931a. eCollection 2020 May 26.
Micro/nano-patterned alumina surfaces are important in a variety fields such as chemical/biotechnology, surface science, and microelectro-mechanical systems. However, for patterning alumina surfaces, it still remains a challenge to have a lithographic tool that has large flexibility in design layouts, structural reconfigurability, and a simple fabrication process. In this work, a new alumina-patterning platform that uses a photo-reconfigurable azobenzene-alumina composite as an imprinting material is presented. Under far-field irradiation, the azobenzene-alumina anisotropically flows in the direction parallel to the light polarization. Accordingly, an arbitrarily designed azobenzene-alumina composite by imprinting can be deterministically reconfigured by light polarization and irradiation time. The photo-reconfigured azobenzene-alumina is then converted to pure alumina through calcination in an air atmosphere, which provides thin crack-free alumina patterns with a high structural fidelity. The novel combination of photo-reconfigurable azobenzene moieties and an alumina precursor for imprinting the material provides large flexibility in designing and controlling geometric parameters of the alumina pattern, which potentially offers significant value in various micro/nanotechnology fields.
微纳图案化氧化铝表面在化学/生物技术、表面科学和微机电系统等多个领域都很重要。然而，对于氧化铝表面的图案化而言，拥有一种在设计布局上具有很大灵活性、结构可重构性且制造工艺简单的光刻工具仍然是一项挑战。在这项工作中，提出了一种新的氧化铝图案化平台，该平台使用光可重构偶氮苯 - 氧化铝复合材料作为压印材料。在远场照射下，偶氮苯 - 氧化铝沿平行于光偏振的方向各向异性流动。因此，通过压印任意设计的偶氮苯 - 氧化铝复合材料可以通过光偏振和照射时间确定性地重新配置。然后，通过在空气气氛中煅烧将光重构的偶氮苯 - 氧化铝转化为纯氧化铝，这提供了具有高结构保真度的无裂纹薄氧化铝图案。用于压印材料的光可重构偶氮苯部分和氧化铝前驱体的新颖组合在设计和控制氧化铝图案的几何参数方面提供了很大的灵活性，这在各种微纳技术领域可能具有重要价值。
