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.
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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.
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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