Morphing Surfaces for μ-Contact Printing

Micro contact printing is an increasingly reliable technique to pattern various ink materials with microscale precision over large areas on flat or curvilinear substrates. The method involves contacting an elastomeric stamp to a transferable ink, pickup of the ink and transfer to a target substrate, and interfacial fracture to release the ink to a target substrate. Here, we employ shape-memory surfaces with thermo-mechanical programming to achieve large-area pattern transfer to multilayered films from donor substrates to receiving plates. We show that shape-memory can enable robust pattern transfer at higher resolution. New photolithography methods were applied to create patterns of SiO₂ microdiscs on a silicon wafer. High resolution pattern transfer of vapor deposited thin films was demonstrated by (i) pressing a shape-memory stamp against a donor substrate; (ii) cooling the system to encourage adhesion between the stamp and the ink; (iii) removing the stamp and pressing against a receiving substrate, and (iv) heating followed by stamp removal to transfer the material. Control experiments indicate that thermal mechanical programming is critical to successful pattern transfer.