Thermal Conduction Suppresses Cracks in PDMS Wrinkling by Plasma Oxidation.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39644255.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c05019 and PMC identifier 11741141.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
We report a facile approach to suppress intrinsic crack formation during wrinkling of plasma-oxidized polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films, removing a major hindrance in the practical use of these ubiquitous, functional surface patterns. A combination of high heat transfer coefficient (HTC) of the film substrate and low PDMS thickness is shown to consistently yield crack-free wrinkling of glassy skin and PDMS bilayers. Employing optical and atomic force microscopy, light scattering, thermal measurements, and heat transport and stress calculations, we demonstrate that our findings hold for a range of glass, plastic, metal, and layered support materials and plasma processing conditions. Subsuming the PDMS contribution to thermal conduction, an overall HTC threshold of ∼800 W/(m<sup>2</sup> K), for typical plasma exposures, for crack-free wrinkling is obtained. While suppressing cracks, this simple approach retains the functionality of the glassy skin of plasma-oxidized PDMS.