Michigan State University

Troy R Hendricks

Ilsoon Lee

Lawrence T Drzal

Jue Lu

Methods involve a combination of polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) coating or silane self assembly on a substrate; microcontact printing; and conductive graphite particles, especially size controlled highly conductive exfoliated graphite nanoplatelets. The conductive graphite particles are coated with a charged polymer such as sulfonated polystyrene. The graphite particles are patterned using microcontact printing and intact pattern transfer on a substrate that has an oppositely-charged surface. The method allows for conductive organic patterning on both flat and curved surfaces and can be used in microelectronic device fabrication.

Micropatterning of conductive graphite particles using microcontact printing

Methods to control and prevent polymer films from buckling are provided. Buckled morphologies are created by thermally cycling or mechanically compressing a substrate such as poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) coated with a polyelectrolyte multilayer film. By varying the dimensions of the surface topography relative to the buckling wavelength (e.g., pattern size is less than, equal to, and greater than the buckling wavelength) the orientation and the local morphology of the buckled films is controlled. Based on the information obtained, we demonstrate how to alleviate the unavoidable buckling by incorporating nanoparticles into the film. In addition, we studied the effect of the silica layer that results from oxygen plasma treatment and the critical temperature for permanent film buckling.

Growing community of inventors

Lansing, MI, United States of America

Troy R Hendricks