IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Thin Films Thursday Sessions
       Session TF+BI-ThM

Paper TF+BI-ThM1
Self-aligned Deposition and Patterning of Biologically-active Polymer Thin Films

Thursday, November 1, 2001, 8:20 am, Room 123

Session: Bioactive and Organic/Inorganic Thin Films
Presenter: B.H. Augustine, James Madison University
Authors: B.H. Augustine, James Madison University
S.M. Ramirez, James Madison University
O.D. Lees, James Madison University
Correspondent: Click to Email
High-resolution patterning and microfabrication of polymeric and other soft materials is challenging since traditional photolithographic methods require organic solvents to remove photoresist. These solvents typically also dissolve or degrade biological and polymeric surfaces which one might pattern. We report selective dewetting using microcontact printing (µ-CP), micromolding in capillaries (MIMIC), and solvent assisted micromolding (SAMIM) techniques to pattern thin films of the biodegradable copolymer, poly-3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate [P(3HB-3HV)] onto glass, silicon, and Au coated silicon substrates. Film thicknesses range from 20 mn to over 700 nm, with minimum feature sizes as small as 3 µm. Dense 100 nm thick films with sub-10 µm features can be patterned in as few as two minutes for the entire processing resulting in potentially high throughput processing. Thin film microstructure can be dramatically changed by controlling deposition parameters such as solvent concentration, feature aspect ratio, and polarity of the solvent. While we report microfabrication techniqes for a specific biodegradable polymer system, we will also comment on extending these techniques to other polymer systems and the issues affecting the profound change in polymer microstructure using these three different patterning techniques.