Several techniques based on soft lithography have emerged to replicate micrometre-sized patterns. Similar to most other lithographic methods, these techniques structure a single layer of photo resist. For many applications, however, it is desirable to control the spatial arrangement of more than one component. With traditional methods, this requires an iterative, multistep procedure, making the replication process more complex and less reliable. Here, a replication process is described where multiple materials are processed simultaneously. Using a bilayer formed by two different polymers, electrohydrodynamic instabilities at both polymer surfaces produce a hierarchic lateral structure that exhibits two independent characteristic dimensions. A lateral modulation of the electric field enables replication with a resolution down to 100 nanometres. This approach might provide a simple strategy for large-area, sub-100-nanometre lithography.

The dewetting of a polymer film in a confined geometry was employed in a pattern-replication process. The instability of dewetting films is pinned by a structured confining surface, thereby replicating its topographic pattern. Depending on the surface energy of the confining surface, two different replication mechanisms were found, leading to a choice of either a negative or a positive replication mechanism of a patterned plate.

We have investigated spontaneous surface instabilities of very thin polymer films. Film stability and the wavelength of the dominating unstable mode were found to depend sensitively on the media adjacent to the film. Our experimental results cannot be explained by van der Waals interactions alone. To account for the presence of an additional destabilizing force, we propose that the geometrical confinement of thermally excited acoustic waves gives rise to a force that is strong enough to destabilize thin films. This thermoacoustic effect is of similar magnitude as van der Waals forces.

The spontaneous break-up of thin films is commonly attributed to the destabilizing effect of van der Waals forces. Dispersion forces can be considered in terms of the confinement of the electromagnetic fluctuation spectrum. The principle of confinement is more general than the usual argument of interacting dipole fluctuations. It includes also disjoining pressures that are caused by thermal fluctuations. In this context, we review recent publications on the dewetting of thin polymer films, and argue that the presence of an acoustic disjoining pressure is necessary to adequately describe some of these experimental results.

The behaviour of miscible blends of polystyrene (PS)/poly(vinyl methyl ether)(PVME) of varying compositions has been investigated at temperatures where PS and PVME are miscible. The PVME is seen to enrich the polymer-air surface, forming a layer with a width that is comparable to the correlation length. Further heating close to the demixing temperature results in the formation of a capillary instabilities at the polymer surface exhibiting a spinodal-like pattern with a characteristic wavelength that depends on the blend composition. Formation of these instabilities is seen for all blend compositions. We propose that these wetting induced instabilities result from coupled height and composition fluctuations in the PVME enriched surface layer, driving the build-up of long wavelength fluctuations.