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Preparation of ultra-thin elastomeric films

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Abstract

When polydimethylsiloxane elastomers are produced, in the absence of great care, chains remain that are unbound to the cross-linked matrix. Due to the unbound chains swelling the crosslinked matrix, these materials are gels. We have developed a simple process to prepare well-controlled elastomeric thin films which do not rely on unknown commercial formulations.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and HK acknowledges funding from the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4M1, Canada

    Hamza K. Khattak, Lauren A. Dutcher & Kari Dalnoki-Veress

  2. Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4M1, Canada

    Guanhua Lu & Michael A. Brook

  3. UMR CNRS Gulliver 7083, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, 75005, Paris, France

    Kari Dalnoki-Veress

Authors
  1. Hamza K. Khattak
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  2. Guanhua Lu
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  3. Lauren A. Dutcher
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  4. Michael A. Brook
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  5. Kari Dalnoki-Veress
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Contributions

HK led the experimental effort with help from KDV and additional data provided by LD. The chemistry was designed by GL and MB; implemented and tested by HK. HK wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors contributed to writing the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kari Dalnoki-Veress.

Supplementary Information

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Supplementary file 1 (mp4 589 KB)

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Khattak, H.K., Lu, G., Dutcher, L.A. et al. Preparation of ultra-thin elastomeric films. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 33 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00291-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00291-w

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