A New Method for Patterning Azopolymer Thin Film Surfaces

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple bottom-up method using incoherent light and solvent dewetting to create and tailor nanostructures on azopolymer films, enabling advanced surface patterning and reshaping for nanotechnology applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel, straightforward approach for fabricating and manipulating azopolymer nanostructures with potential for diverse surface patterning applications.

Findings

Formation of customizable doughnut-shaped nanostructures.

Laser illumination enables further growth and reshaping of nanostructures.

Potential for studying size-dependent optical properties and fabricating nano-traps.

Abstract

We present a simple bottom-up approach via an incoherent unpolarized illumination and the choice of a solvent-droplet-induced-dewetting method to photoinducenano doughnuts on the surface of azopolymer thin films. We demonstrate that doughnut-shaped nanostructures can be formed and tailored with a wide range of typical sizes, thus providing a rich field of applications using surface photo-patterning. Furthermore, due to the presence of highly photoactive azobenzene derivative in the material, illumination of these nanostructures by a polarized laser light shows the possibility of a further growth and reshaping opening the way for fundamental studies of size-dependent scaling laws of optical properties and possible fabrication of nano-reactor or nano-trap patterns