TY  - JOUR
A1  - Akarsu, Pinar
A1  - Grobe, Richard
A1  - Nowaczyk, Julius
A1  - Hartlieb, Matthias
A1  - Reinicke, Stefan
A1  - Böker, Alexander
A1  - Sperling, Marcel
A1  - Reifarth, Martin
T1  - Solid-phase microcontact printing for precise patterning of rough surfaces
BT  - using polymer-tethered elastomeric stamps for the transfer of reactive silanes
JF  - ACS applied polymer materials
N2  - We present a microcontact printing (mu CP) routine suitable to introduce defined (sub-) microscale patterns on surface substrates exhibiting a high capillary activity and receptive to a silane-based chemistry. This is achieved by transferring functional trivalent alkoxysilanes, such as (3-aminopropyl)-triethoxysilane (APTES) as a low-molecular weight ink via reversible covalent attachment to polymer brushes grafted from elastomeric polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamps. The brushes consist of poly{N-[tris(hydroxymethyl)-methyl]acrylamide} (PTrisAAm) synthesized by reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT)-polymerization and used for immobilization of the alkoxysilane-based ink by substituting the alkoxy moieties with polymer-bound hydroxyl groups. Upon physical contact of the silane-carrying polymers with surfaces, the conjugated silane transfers to the substrate, thus completely suppressing ink-flow and, in turn, maximizing printing accuracy even for otherwise not addressable substrate topographies. We provide a concisely conducted investigation on polymer brush formation using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and ellipsometry as well as ink immobilization utilizing two-dimensional proton nuclear Overhauser enhancement spectroscopy (H-1-H-1-NOESY-NMR). We analyze the mu CP process by printing onto Si-wafers and show how even distinctively rough surfaces can be addressed, which otherwise represent particularly challenging substrates.
KW  - microcontact printing
KW  - capillary-active substrates
KW  - silane chemistry
KW  - PDMS surface grafting
KW  - surface patterning
KW  - shuttled RAFT-polymerization
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1021/acsapm.1c00024
SN  - 2637-6105
VL  - 3
IS  - 5
SP  - 2420
EP  - 2431
PB  - American Chemical Society
CY  - Washington
ER  -