Fabrication of a mesoscale wire: Sintering of a polymer colloid arrayed inside a one-dimensional groove pattern

Abstract

The fabrication of submicron-sized wires from amorphous polymer materials, using 1D patterened colloidal arrays, was discussed. The method employed the sintering of polystrene beads arrayed on a photopatterned epoxy-based azobenzene-functionalized polymer matrix. Amorphous polymer sintering was found to be consisted of neck formation and coalescence above the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the polymer. The analysis showed that the neck formation was strongly dependent on the thermal states of the polymer chains of the beads and the matrix.