Design, Synthesis, and Use of Y-Shaped ATRP/NMP Surface Tethered Initiator.

Heterogeneous polymer brushes on surfaces can be easily formed from a binary initiator on a silicon oxide substrate where two different types of polymers can be grown side-by-side. Herein, we designed a new Y-shaped binary initiator using straightforward chemistry for “grafting from” polymer brushes. This initiator synthesis takes advantage of the Passerini reaction, a multicomponent reaction combining two initiator sites and one surface linking site. This Y-shaped binary initiator can be synthesized in three steps with a higher yield than other similar initiators reported in the literature, and can be performed on a multigram scale. We were able to attach the initiator to a silicon oxide s…

MEMS analogous micro-patterning of thermotropic nematic liquid crystalline elastomer films using a fluorinated photoresist and a hard mask process

In this work, we present a method to pattern liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) in the micrometer range without using any mechanical processing steps to prepare micron sized LCE actuators compatible with microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology. Multi-layer spin-coating processes are developed to synthesise and structure 300–3500 nm thick LCE films. A water soluble sacrificial layer, a photoalignment layer and a LCE formulation, which is polymerised and crosslinked in its liquid crystal phase, are spin-coated successively onto a substrate. A fluorinated photoresist layer is used to structure LCE films with thicknesses up to 700 nm in a photolithographic and etching process. For thicker…

Influences of Ortho‐Fluoroazobenzenes on Liquid Crystalline Phase Stability and 2D (Planar) Actuation Properties of Liquid Crystalline Elastomers

Microfluidic Synthesis of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Particle Transport Systems which Can Be Remote‐Controlled Magnetically