Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

From a two-dimensional chemical pattern to a three-dimensional topology through selective inversion of a liquid–liquid bilayer

Nature Materials volume 5, pages 957–961 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Soft organic surfaces with more and more complex topologies are required daily to engineer appropriate microstructures for many different applications such as DNA array technology1, biological optics for advanced photonic systems2 and microfluidics3,4. Complementarily to conventional lithographic processes5,6, several pioneering methods have been developed recently, by controlling phase separation of polymer blends7,8, spinodal decomposition of homopolymers9,10 or by using the action of additional external forces driving diverse instabilities11,12. Here we present a method that not only provides original concepts towards the three-dimensional (3D) structuring of liquids, on the basis of the synergistic effects of molecular diffusion and confined nucleation, but also suggests original solutions for the transport, mixing and filtering of small volumes of liquid. Through the intrinsic destabilization of a liquid–liquid bilayer, the 2D pattern of a chemically structured surface with ‘hydrophilic’ and ‘hydrophobic’ domains is transferred to a solid/liquid interface as a 3D topography with either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ replication. This easy-to-use process has potential applications in various technological realms requiring a specific topography at interfaces such as microfluidics or biosensors.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Optical micrographs of a PDMS film (h0=5.0 μm) deposited on a chemically patterned substrate and immersed in ethanol.
Figure 2: Sketch of the experimental set-up used for thin-film structuring.
Figure 3: Optical micrographs of a PDMS film (h0=5.0 μm) deposited on a substrate patterned by chemical stripes and immersed in ethanol.
Figure 4: Details of the bursting process and resulting morphology.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Langer, R. & Tirrell, D. A. Designing materials for biology and medicine. Nature 428, 487–492 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Lee, L. P. & Szema, R. Inspirations from biological, optics for advanced photonic systems. Science 310, 1148–1150 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Delamarche, E., Juncker, D. & Schmid, H. Microfluidics for processing surfaces and miniaturizing biological assays. Adv. Mater. 17, 2911–2933 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Squires, T. M. & Quake, S. R. Microfluidics: Fluid physics at the nanoliter scale. Rev. Mod. Phys. 77, 977–1026 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Xia, Y., Rogers, J. A., Paul, K. E. & Whitesides, G. M. Unconventional methods for fabricating and patterning nanostructures. Chem. Rev. 99, 1823–1848 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Xia, Y. et al. Complex optical surfaces formed by replica molding against elastomeric masters. Science 273, 347–349 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Boltau, M., Walheim, S., Mlynek, J., Krausch, G. & Steiner, U. Surface-induced structure formation of polymer blends on patterned substrates. Nature 391, 877–879 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Heriot, S. Y. & Jones, R. A. L. An interfacial instability in a transient wetting layer leads to lateral phase separation in thin spin-cast polymer-blend films. Nature Mater. 4, 782–786 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Herminghaus, S. et al. Spinodal dewetting in liquid crystal and liquid metal films. Science 282, 916–919 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Higgins, A. M. & Jones, R. A. L. Anisotropic spinodal dewetting as a route to self-assembly of patterned surfaces. Nature 404, 476–478 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Schäffer, E., Thurn-Albrecht, T., Russell, T. P. & Steiner, U. Electrically induced structure formation and pattern transfer. Nature 403, 874–877 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Schäffer, E., Harkema, S., Roerdink, M., Blossey, R. & Steiner, U. Morphological instability of a confined polymer film in a thermal gradient. Macromolecules 36, 1645–1655 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Seemann, R., Herminghaus, S. & Jacobs, K. Dewetting patterns and molecular forces: A reconciliation. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 5534–5537 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Kargupta, K. & Sharma, A. Templating of thin films induced by dewetting on patterned surfaces. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4536–4539 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Love, J. C., Estroff, L. A., Kriebel, J. K., Nuzzo, R. G. & Whitesides, G. M. Self-assembled monolayers of thiolates on metals as a form of nanotechnology. Chem. Rev. 105, 1103–1169 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Bico, J. & Quéré, D. Self-propelling slugs. J. Fluid Mech. 467, 101–127 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. de Gennes, P.-G., Brochard-Wyart, F. & Quéré, D. Capillarity and Wetting Phenomena: Drops, Bubbles, Pearls, Waves (Springer, New-York, 2004).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  18. Reiter, G. et al. Thin film instability induced by long-range forces. Langmuir 15, 2551–2558 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Schäffle, C., Leiderer, P. & Bechinger, C. Subpattern formation during condensation processes on structured substrates. Europhys. Lett. 63, 394–400 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Lopez, G. P., Biebuyck, H. A., Frisbie, C. D. & Whitesides, G. M. Imaging of features on surfaces by condensation figures. Science 260, 647–649 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Kumar, A. & Whitesides, G. M. Pattern condensation figures as optical diffraction gratings. Science 263, 60–62 (1994).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Steyer, A., Guenoun, P. & Beysens, D. Growth of droplets on a substrate by diffusion and coalescence. Phys. Rev. A 44, 8271–8277 (1991).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Viovy, J. L., Beysens, D. & Knobler, C. M. Scaling description for the growth of condensation patterns on surfaces. Phys. Rev. A 37, 4965–4970 (1988).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Narhe, R. D. & Beysens, D. A. Nucleation and growth on a superhydrophobic grooved surface. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 076103 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Lenz, P. & Lipowsky, R. Morphological transitions of wetting layers on structured surfaces. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 1920–1923 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Gau, H., Herminghaus, S., Lenz, P. & Lipowsky, R. Liquid morphologies on structured surfaces: From microchannels to microchips. Science 283, 46–49 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Debregeas, G., de Gennes, P.-G. & Brochard-Wyart, F. The life and death of “bare” viscous bubbles. Science 279, 1704–1707 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank D. Beysens, S. Dietrich, A. Jonas and G. Reiter for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by the Belgian National Funds for Scientific Research (FNRS), the Government of the Region of Wallonia (CORRONET Research Programme) and the European Commission (Phasing out, MateriaNova). P.D. is a research Associate of the FNRS.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Physicochimie des Polymères, Université de Mons Hainaut, 20, Place du Parc, Mons, B-7000, Belgium

    Julien Léopoldès & Pascal Damman

Authors
  1. Julien Léopoldès
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pascal Damman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Julien Léopoldès or Pascal Damman.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Léopoldès, J., Damman, P. From a two-dimensional chemical pattern to a three-dimensional topology through selective inversion of a liquid–liquid bilayer. Nature Mater 5, 957–961 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1787

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1787

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing