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Injection Molding Micro‐ and Nanostructures in Thermoplastic Elastomers
Author(s) -
StormonthDarling John M.,
Saeed Anwer,
Reynolds Paul M.,
Gadegaard Nikolaj
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
macromolecular materials and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.913
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1439-2054
pISSN - 1438-7492
DOI - 10.1002/mame.201600011
Subject(s) - materials science , thermoplastic polyurethane , polycarbonate , casting , molding (decorative) , thermoplastic , replication (statistics) , fabrication , thermoplastic elastomer , polymer , siloxane , composite material , nanoscopic scale , elastomer , nanotechnology , copolymer , medicine , statistics , alternative medicine , mathematics , pathology
Flexible polymers such as poly dimethyl siloxane (PDMS) can be patterned at the micro‐ and nanoscale by casting, for a variety of applications. This replication‐based fabrication process is relatively cheap and fast, yet injection molding offers an even faster and cheaper alternative to PDMS casting, provided thermoplastic polymers with similar mechanical properties can be used. In this paper, a thermoplastic polyurethane is evaluated for its patterning ability with an aim to forming the type of flexible structures used to measure and modulate the contractile forces of cells in tissue engineering experiments. The successful replication of grating structures is demonstrated with feature sizes as low as 100 nm and an analysis of certain processing conditions that facilitate and enhance the accuracy of this replication is presented. The results are benchmarked against an optical storage media grade polycarbonate.