Low‐Temperature Plasma‐Assisted Nanotransfer Printing between Thermoplastic Polymers

Abstract

Plasma activation of thermoplastic polymer surfaces enables nanotransfer printing (NTP) at dramatically lower processing temperatures. Polar functional groups introduced by plasma surface activation render the polymer surfaces hydrophilic and cause a dramatic increase in interfacial adhesion, thus lowering the temperature at which NTP can be successfully performed to below the glass‐transition temperature of each polymer.

Plasma-polymer interactions: A review of progress in understanding polymer resist mask durability during plasma etching for nanoscale fabrication

“…13 The polymer surface reactivity can be increased by surface activation/functionalization pretreatments by interaction with low temperature plasma ͑see, for example, Ref. 298,299 These industrial uses are driven by the attractive bulk properties of polymers, i.e., low weight, flexibility, and compatibility with advanced fabrication methods, e.g., low-cost roll-to-roll processing. Control of adhesion covers industrial production of meter-scale to nanometer-scale products 13,[290][291][292][293] with an example of the former being the treatment of plastics for packaging 294 and optical coatings of polymers 295,296 for windows and optical appliances, while an example of the latter is surface preparation for nanotransfer printing where the transfer of a patterned thin-film ͑printable layer͒ from a "transfer" substrate to a "device" substrate 297 can be enabled by plasma treatment of surfaces to activate these.…”

A quality map of transfer printing

“…Transfer printing emerges as a potential fabrication technique to enable a low-cost and scalable roll-to-roll printing process of flexible devices. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Although transfer printing has been demonstrated in a wide range of material systems, the quality control of transfer printing has been mainly explored via massive experimental trials, 16,20 which are both time consuming and cost prohibitive, and thus lead to limited understanding. Aiming at a thorough understanding of the mechanisms governing transfer printing quality, this paper reports a comprehensive study of the effects of interfacial defects and device substrate stiffness on transfer printing, via computational modeling.…”

“…1͑b͔͒. 20 The under-standing of critical transfer printing conditions governing print quality is still preliminary. For example, enhanced interfacial adhesion between the printable layer and the device substrate through plasma treatment 20 or applying a selfassembled adhesive monolayer 29 can lead to improved transfer printing quality.…”

“…20 The under-standing of critical transfer printing conditions governing print quality is still preliminary. For example, enhanced interfacial adhesion between the printable layer and the device substrate through plasma treatment 20 or applying a selfassembled adhesive monolayer 29 can lead to improved transfer printing quality. Further experiments have shown that the printing quality is also sensitive to both the specific geometry of the printable layer and the mechanical properties of organic/inorganic hybrid materials in the transfer printing structure, with quantitative dependence remaining elusive.…”

Highly Exfoliated Graphite Fluoride as a Precursor for Graphene Fluoride Dispersions and Films

“…44 HEG was further fluorinated by vapors of chlorine trifluoride to yield fluorinated highly exfoliated graphite (FHEG). Pre-cooled Teflon reactor was filled with 20-30 mL of liquid pre-cooled ClF 3 , the reactor was closed and cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature.…”