Formation of Wrinkle Patterns on Porous Elastomeric Membrane and Their Fabrication of Hierarchical Architectures

Abstract

We report the formation of wrinkle patterns on porous elastomeric membrane and their fabrication of hierarchical architectures through mechanical stretching and replica molding. The technique builds upon a buckling instability of a stiff layer supported by a porous elastomeric membrane which was induced by surface plasma oxidation of the pre-stretched porous elastomer followed by removal of the applied mechanical strain to form wrinkle patterns, and replica molding of the deformed features on the porous membrane into epoxy to form hierarchical architectures through casting the UV-curable epoxy prepolymer and UV curing. We find that due to the existence of micropores on the membrane, the formation of wrinkle patterns is different from that formed on a continuous elastomeric film, and by varying the applied mechanical stretching strain condition and plasma oxidation condition, the wrinkle patterns could be either confined by the micropores on the membrane to exhibit a wavelength equal to its pitch or form wrinkles with much large wavelength compared with that formed on a continuous elastomeric film. Therefore, the micropillar arrays fabricated by replica molding could stand on different types of wrinkle patterns to form different hierarchical architectures. The method we illustrate here offers a simple and cost-effective approach to fabricate various hierarchical structures, and provides possibilities for potential applications in various fields, such as microfluidics, micro- and nanofabrication of complex structures, crystal formation, cell attachment, superhydrophobicity and dry adhesion.