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An inkjet printing soft photomask and its application on organic polymer substrates

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Abstract

This article presents a simple, fast and low-cost method to fabricate a flexible UV light photomask. The designed micropatterns were directly printed onto transparent hybrid composite film of biaxially oriented polypropylene coated with silica oxide (BOPP-SiO x ) by an inkjet printer. Compared to the conventional chrome-mask, it is of advantages such as suitable for non-planar substrates, scalable for large area production, and extreme low cost. Combined with the confined photo-catalytic oxidation (CPO) reaction, the printed flexible BOPP-SiO x photomask was successfully used to pattern the shape of wettability of organic polymer surfaces, and then polyaniline patterns were deposited on the modified substrates with strong adhesion. With the above photomasks, the polyacrylic acid graft chains were duplicated on the poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and BOPP substrates by photografting polymerization. We grafted polyacrylic acid (PAA) on a non-planar plastic substrate with this soft and thin plastic photomask. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and optical microscopy were used to characterize the surface morphology and thickness of ink layers of the printed photomask. Optical microscopy was used to characterize the deposition polyaniline micropatterns. It was found that the desired patterns were precisely printed on the modified polymer films and were applied in modifying organic polymer substrates. The printed photomask could be exploited in the fields such as prototype microfluidics, micro-sensors, optical structures and any other kind of microstructures which does not require high durability and dimensional stability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering; College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    LuLin Wang, MengJun Chen, Hui Yao, XiaoMan Zheng & WanTai Yang

  2. Key Laboratory of Carbon Fiber and Functional Polymers, Ministry of Education, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    YuHong Ma & WanTai Yang

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  1. LuLin Wang
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  2. YuHong Ma
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  3. MengJun Chen
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  4. Hui Yao
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  6. WanTai Yang
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Correspondence to WanTai Yang.

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Wang, L., Ma, Y., Chen, M. et al. An inkjet printing soft photomask and its application on organic polymer substrates. Sci. China Chem. 53, 1695–1704 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-010-3193-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-010-3193-y

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