Functional Nanoimprinting

Abstract

A cure‐activated nanolayer transfer technique is described, which when combined with soft imprinting (lithography) can be used to fabricate multiple surface‐functionalized replicas from the same mould without the need for a separate secondary functionalization step. For instance, the hierarchical roughnesses of plant leaves and moth wings are successfully replicated to yield superhydrophobicity. The inherent simplicity and nanometer‐scale precision of this approach makes it highly attractive for a plethora of surface‐functionalization and patterning applications.

Gladiolus dalenii Based Bioinspired Structured Surface via Soft Lithography and Its Application in Water Vapor Condensation and Fog Harvesting

“…In order to improve the fog collection performance of the replicated G. dalenii, different approaches such as surface functionalization by initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) or functional nanoimpriting could be applied. , …”

“…In order to improve the fog collection performance of the replicated G. dalenii, different approaches such as surface functionalization by initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) or functional nanoimpriting could be applied. 74,75 In water collection and condensation heat transfer applications, the surface should perform over a prolonged period of time and over a number of cycles. Therefore, we tested our substrates for repeatability studies.…”

An academic, clinical and industrial update on electrospun, additive manufactured and imprinted medical devices

“…Conversely, the thermo-mechanical processes commonly utilised in imprint lithography can disrupt the chemical properties of a biomaterial, in particular, surface tethered proteins or incorporated biomolecules [94]. Click functionalisation and cure-activated functional nano-layer transfer have overcome problems encountered particularly in postfunctionalisation processing of imprinted polymers [92,110,111]. While significant progress has been achieved in chemical and biochemical functionalisation of patterned substrates without altering surface topography, these technologies are still in early developmental stage with the majority of the recent studies focussing on functionalisation for increased cell adhesion [112,113] and long-term culture [114].…”

“…Dunn and Brown (1986) First in vitro study to demonstrate cell behaviour in response to imprinted patterns by electron beam lithography and photolithography [136] Chou et al (1995) Introduction of nano-imprint lithography for the development of nano-scale features (sub-25 nm) [137] Charest Additive manufacturing Biodegradable synthetic polymers [64][65][66][67] Ideally, through a hydrogel [81,82] The most precise 3D fabrication technology; precision down to 100 nm [3,4] Permanently differentiated cell phenotype maintenance [71,77] Primarily bone and cartilage [69,70,72] Imprint lithography Non-degradable synthetic polymers [91,92] Limited [92,110,111] The most precise 2D fabrication technology; precision down to 5 nm [5,96,97] Permanently differentiated cell phenotype maintenance [91,100]; control of stem cell lineage [140] differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells into neural lineages and promote and guide neurite outgrowth [11], promote the neuronal differentiation of human embryonic stem cells [12,13] and regulate proliferation, differentiation and neurite outgrowth of neural stem cells in culture [14,15]. It is worth pointing out that a recent study argues that fibre diameter seems to be even more important than fibre orientation in differentiated mesenchymal stem cells towards tenogenic lineage [16].…”