We present a straightforward, contact-based, strategy to functionalize and to pattern polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with atomically thin gold over square millimeter areas. The pattern features span hundreds of nanometers to hundreds of microns. Functionalization depends on a recently discovered contact-based chemistry, chemical lift-off lithography (CLL), where PDMS first conformally contacts a gold surface with self-assembled hydroxyl-terminated alkanethiols, then removes molecules and gold from the surface upon separation. We have devised a suite of fabrication and characterization tools to pattern flat PDMS via CLL and to visualize these patterned features, which do not measurably influence the optical transparency or flexibility of the PDMS. We visualize the patterns directly through peak-force atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. We then demonstrate the chemical functionality of the lifted-off gold on PDMS through a simple DNA hybridization assay. Thiolated single-stranded DNA probes bind to the lifted-off regions on the PDMS, and the pattern becomes visible in fluorescence microscopy when the probes bind to their dye-labeled target strands. Compared with common strategies for patterning PDMS, the CLL mechanism is chemically selective, straightforward, replicable at ambient conditions, and enables nanometer to millimeter feature sizes. Further, this study forms the basis on which to interrogate the optical, electrical, and chemical properties for the morphologies of the ultrathin gold produced here.

Chemical fabrication of patterned transparent gold-coated polydimethylsiloxane

251st National Meeting (2016)

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