No abstract

Polymer metallization is extensively used in a variety of micro- and nanosystem technologies. However, the deposited metal film exhibits poor adhesion to polymer substrates, which may cause difficulties in many applications. In this work, ultraviolet (UV)-ozone surface modification is for the first time put forward to enhance the adhesion between metal films and polymer substrates. The adhesion of sputtered Cu films on UV-ozone modified poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) substrates is enhanced by a factor of 6, and that of Au films is improved by a factor of 10. Moreover, metal films on the modified PMMA substrates can withstand a long-time liquid immersion. To understand the mechanism for the adhesion enhancement, the surface modification is studied with contact angle measurements, attenuated total reflection Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry (ATR-FTIR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Detailed characterization results indicate that the significant adhesion enhancement is attributed to the increases of both the surface wettability by generating some polar functional groups and the roughness of the surface in nanoscale. To demonstrate this novel polymer metallization method, a 6-in. PMMA chip with arrays of three-electrode electrochemical microsensors is designed and fabricated, and the microsensor exhibits excellent reproducibility, uniformity, and long-term stability.

Abstract:The effects of silica nanoparticles on the properties of a commonly used Sylgard 184 polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in microfluidics were systemically studied. Two kinds of silica nanoparticles, A380 fumed silica nanoparticles and MCM-41 mesoporous silica nanoparticles, were individually doped into PDMS, and the properties of PDMS with these two different silica nanoparticles were separately tested and compared. The thermal and mechanical stabilities of PDMS were significantly enhanced, and the swelling characteristics were also improved by doping these two kinds of nanoparticles. However, the transparency of PDMS was decreased due to the light scattering by nanoparticles. By contrast, PDMS/MCM-41 nanocomposites showed a lower coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) owing to the mesoporous structure of MCM-41 nanoparticles, while PDMS/A380 nanocomposites showed a larger elastic modulus and better transparency due to the smaller size of A380 nanoparticles. In addition, A380 and MCM-41 nanoparticles had the similar effects on the swelling characteristics of PDMS. The swelling ratio of PDMS in toluene was decreased to 0.68 when the concentration of nanoparticles was 10 wt %.