Fabrication of a Polymeric Optical Waveguide-On-Flex Using Electrostatic-Induced Lithography

Hin, Tze Yang; Liu, Changqing; Conway, Paul; Yu, Weixing; Cargill, S.; Desmulliez, Marc Phillipe Yves

doi:10.1109/lpt.2010.2048310

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…As a direct consequence, the excess charges continuously produced during the heating process and distributed according to the domain structures, are no longer attracted by the polarization charge and, consequently, they result free to diffuse into the liquid. The electric forces at the solid-liquid interface are responsible of the polymer shaping, in particular in this case, the force acting on the polymeric film and produced by the pyro-EHD effect can be deduced by the Maxwell stress tensor [30]:…”

Section: Fabrication Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrohydrodynamic Assembly of Multiscale PDMS Microlens Arrays

Vespini

Gennari

Coppola

et al. 2015

IEEE J. Select. Topics Quantum Electron.

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In this paper, we introduce an easy multiscale approach for the fabrication of polymer microlens arrays through a self-assembling process driven by the electrohydrodynamic (EHD) pressure. This method represents a simple alternative to the conventional soft lithography techniques. A thin layer of liquid polymer is deposited on a microengineered ferroelectric crystal and can be self-assembled and cross-linked in a single-step process as a consequence of the pyroelectric effect activated by simply heating the substrate. Although the EHD instability induced by the pyroelectric effect was discovered in principle few years ago, here we demonstrate a systematic investigation for fabrication of microlens arrays in a multiscale range (i.e., between 25 to 200 μm diameter) with high degree of uniformity. By controlling the polymer instability driven by EHD, we report on two different microoptical shapes can be obtained spontaneously, i.e., spherical or toroidal. Here, we show how the geometrical properties and the focal length of the lens array are modulated by controlling two appropriate parameters. Such microlenses can be useful also as polymer patterned arrayed microstructures for optical data interconnections, OLEDs efficient light extraction, concentrating light in energy solar cells, imaging and 3-D display solutions, and other photonics applications.

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Section: Fabrication Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrohydrodynamic Assembly of Multiscale PDMS Microlens Arrays

Vespini

Gennari

Coppola

et al. 2015

IEEE J. Select. Topics Quantum Electron.

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“…In this patterning technique, a thin polymer film deforms and self-assembles into micro and nanostructures under either a featureless mask or patterned mask subject to a high electrostatic voltage. The successful replication of sub-micron periodic grating structures in polymer has been demonstrated by this method [3,4]. Figure 1 shows the experimental setup used in this patterning technique.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faithful replication of grating patterns in polymer through electrohydrodynamic instabilities

Yu¹,

Wang²,

Zhang³

et al. 2014

J. Micromech. Microeng.

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Electrohydrodynamic instability patterning (EHDIP) as an alternative patterning method has attracted a great deal of attention over the past decade. This article demonstrates the faithful transfer of patterns with a high aspect ratio onto a polymer film via electrohydrodynamic instabilities for a given patterned grating mask. We perform a simple mathematical analysis to determine the influence of process parameters on the pressure difference ∆P. Through numerical simulation, it is demonstrated that thick films subject to large electric fields are essential to realize this faithful replication. In particular, the influence of the material properties of the polymer on pattern replication is discussed in detail. It is found that, to achieve the smaller periodic patterns with a higher resolution, film with a larger value of the dielectric constant and smaller value of the surface tension should be chosen. In addition, an ideal replication of the mask pattern with a short evolution time is possible by reducing the viscosity of the polymer liquid. Finally, the experiments of the pattern replication with and without defects are demonstrated to compare with the numerical simulation results. It is found that experiments are in good agreement with the simulation results and prove that the numerical simulation method provides an effective way to predict faithful replication.

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“…The underlying physical phenomenon responsible for this technique, the instability of polymer lms on planar substrates when exposed to an external electric eld, has also been intensively researched from the theoretical and experimental points of view, and structures including columns, ridges, holes, channels and even hollow structures have been demonstrated. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] However, the stability of a thin lm on a curved surface is rather different from the planar one. For the case of the at surface, the electric eld overcomes the in-plane curvature to engender structures like columns, holes, or channels on the lm.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%