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    Temporally Arrested Breath Figure

    Year: 2022

    Journal: ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, Volume 14, JUN 15, page 27435–27443

    Authors: Dent, Francis J.; Harbottle, David; Warren, Nicholas J.; Khodaparast, Sepideh

    Organizations: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council through the EPSRC Collaborative Studentship program [EP/T517860/1]; WATER@Leeds SPRING award; Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF) [204825/Z/16/Z]; Royal Society Research Grant [RGSR1211265]; L'Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science Award

    Keywords: breath figure (BF); self-assembly; dropwise condensation; micropatterning; biomimicry; bioinspired; cicada wing

    Since its original conception as a tool for manufacturing porous materials, the breath figure method (BF) and its variations have been frequently used for the fabrication of numerous micro-and nanopatterned functional surfaces. In classical BF, reliable design of the final pattern has been hindered by the dual role of solvent evaporation to initiate/control the dropwise condensation and induce polymerization, alongside the complex effects of local humidity and temperature influence. Herein, we provide a deterministic method for reliable control of BF pore diameters over a wide range of length scales and environmental conditions. To this end, we employ an adapted methodology that decouples cooling from polymerization by using a combination of initiative cooling and quasi-instantaneous UV curing to deliberately arrest the desired BF patterns in time. Through in situ real-time optical microscopy analysis of the condensation kinetics, we demonstrate that an analytically predictable self-similar regime is the predominant arrangement from early to late times O(10-100 s), when high-density condensation nucleation is initially achieved on the polymer films. In this regime, the temporal growth of condensation droplets follows a unified power law of D proportional to t. Identification and quantitative characterization of the scale-invariant self-similar BF regime allow fabrication of programmed pore size, ranging from hundreds of nanometers to tens of micrometers, at high surface coverage of around 40%. Finally, we show that temporal arresting of BF patterns can be further extended for selective surface patterning and/or pore size modulation by spatially masking the UV curing illumination source. Our findings bridge the gap between fundamental knowledge of dropwise condensation and applied breath figure patterning techniques, thus enabling mechanistic design and fabrication of porous materials and interfaces.
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