Liquids on topologically nanopatterned surfaces

We report here surface x-ray scattering studies of the adsorption of simple hydrocarbon liquid films on nanostructured surfaces-silicon patterned by an array of nanocavities. Two different regimes, filling and growing, are observed for the wetting film evolution as a function of the chemical potential offset from the bulk liquid-vapor coexistence. The strong influence of geometrical effects is manifested by a dependence of liquid adsorption in the nanocavities that is stronger than the van der Waals behavior for flat surfaces. The observed dependence is, however, much weaker than predicted for the infinitely deep parabolic cavities, suggesting that the finite-size effects contribute significantly to the observed adsorption behavior.     

Structural characterization of nanopatterned surfaces

In this work, chemically and topographically nanopatterned surfaces were produced by a top-down processing approach for biosensing devices. The nanopatterning was the result of the combination of plasma polymerisation (pp) of biofunctional materials and colloidal lithography techniques. The morphological and chemical properties induced by the plasma deposition-etching treatment were characterised by optical method combining ellipsometry and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy studies. This method supported by atomic force microscopy measurements, allowed the full optical characterization of each step of the top-down process. The optical characterization of the end-up nanopatterned samples demonstrated that the chosen process is able to produce well-defined nanostructured surfaces with controlled chemical and morphological properties.     

Supersymmetric quantum mechanics living on topologically non-trivial Riemann surfaces

Supersymmetric quantum mechanics is constructed in a new non-Hermitian representation. Firstly, the map between the partner operators H ^(±) is chosen antilinear. Secondly, both these components of a super-Hamiltonian $ \mathcal{H} $ \mathcal{H} are defined along certain topologically non-trivial complex curves r ^(±)(x) which spread over several Riemann sheets of the wave function. The non-uniqueness of our choice of the map $ \mathcal{T} $ \mathcal{T} between ‘tobogganic’ partner curves r ⁽⁺⁾(x) and r ⁽⁻⁾(x) is emphasized.     

Nanotribological properties of silicon surfaces nanopatterned by laser interference lithography

The problems caused by the adhesive force and friction force become more critical when the size of M/NEMS devices shrinks to micro/nano-scale. The nanotexture-patterned surface is an effective approach to reduce friction force on micro/nano-scale. Laser interference lithography is an attractive method to fabricate micro/nanotextures, which is maskless and allows large area periodical structures to be patterned by a couple of seconds’ exposure in a simple equipment system. We fabricate various nanogrooves with different pitch and space width on silicon wafers by laser interference lithography and chemical etching. We investigate the nanotribological properties of the patterned surfaces by AFM/FFM. We show that friction on the nano/micro-scale is related to the coverage rate of the nanogrooves, which decreases with increase in the space width and decrease in the pitch.     

Initial attachment and spreading of MG63 cells on nanopatterned titanium surfaces via through-mask anodization

It is well established that nanosized surface topography significantly affects cell response at a biomaterial surface. Here we used a through-mask anodization technique to fabricate well-defined titania nanopillars with tunable feature sizes from 15 to 100 nm on bulk titanium (Ti) substrates and studied their effects on initial attachment and spreading of osteoblast-like cells (MG63). An increase of titania pillar height from 15 to 100 nm resulted in reduced spreading of MG63 osteoblast-like cells and the higher pillar structures also gave rise to heavily elongated cells. By using a FIB/SEM dual beam microscope the interface between MG63 cells and nanopatterned Ti surfaces could be studied in more detail. It was found that the higher pillar structures prevented the cells to conform to the surface topography leaving voids in between the cells and the substrates. The results found in this study agree with previous studies that cells response better to surfaces with smaller (<20 nm) features.     

Morphology of lamellae-forming block copolymer films between two orthogonal chemically nanopatterned striped surfaces

The structure of block copolymers results from the interplay between weak intermolecular forces, typically in the order of k(B)T per molecule. This is particularly true for block copolymer thin films in the presence of chemically patterned surfaces, where the different contributions to the total free energy, the interfacial and bulklike terms, have comparable magnitudes. Here, we report on the structures formed by block copolymers films equilibrated between two chemically patterned surfaces with orthogonal stripes. Our experiments and simulations reveal that the domains are continuous through the film and the interface between domains resembles the Scherk's first minimal surface. The impact of chemical patterns on block copolymer morphologies and the underlying physics gives insight into the nanofabrication of complex nanostructures with directed self-assembly using two engineered boundary conditions, as opposed to only one.