In this paper a method for fabricating nanostructured polymeric surfaces with contrasted chemical functionality is presented. First, a polymer
film of acrylic acid (PAA) is deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. It is covered by a monolayer of particles in the 500
nm range. Then oxygen plasma etching is performed, providing etching of both nanoparticles and acrylic acid film present between the
masks. The etching process is stopped before the complete etching of the nanoparticles and the residual ones are removed by ultrasonic
bath. Chemical contrast is thus created between nanodomes having plateau-like surface with as-deposited carboxylic functionality and substrate
surface. Protein attachment experiments show that proteins are selectively bound to the functional plateau of the PAA domes.
The trend towards large-area substrates stressed by the semiconductor and flat panel display (FPD) industries is propelling the large-area plasma source developments. In this work, a novel inductively coupled plasma source enabling large-area plasma production is presented: the magnetic-pole-enhanced inductively coupled plasma source (MaPE-ICP). The plasma source is based on the use of a coil inductor embedded within a high magnetic permeability pole to enhance the magnetic coupling between the coil and the plasma.A 200 mm MaPE-ICP source has been fully characterized by Langmuir probe, magnetic induction probe and RF electrical parameter measurements. The plasma characteristics are compared to classical ICP source performances. RF electrical parameter measurements show that the current needed to sustain the plasma is halved with the use of a magnetic pole, thus lowering the coil resistive losses. The plasma uniformity is improved compared to that of a spiral coil source, with only a 5.5% variation within the area of the coil radius at 5 mTorr argon pressure. Preliminary plasma uniformity measurements carried out on a 800 mm × 800 mm source show that a non-uniformity of 20% from the average values is achieved over 600 mm with more than 10 11 ion cm −3 . This demonstrates that the use of a magnetic pole to concentrate the magnetic flux is a key asset for scaling up ICPs.
A method for fabricating chemically nanopatterned surfaces based on a combination of colloidal lithography and plasma‐ enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is presented. This method can be applied for the creation of different nanopatterns, and it is in principle not limited in patterning resolution. Nanocraters of poly(acrylic acid) (carboxylic moieties) surrounded by a matrix of poly(ethylene glycol) are fabricated. Chemical force microscopy demonstrates that the process is able to produce the expected surface chemical contrast. Finally, the carboxylic groups of the craters are activated in order to induce the covalent binding of fluorescent‐labeled proteins. Fluorescence investigation using scanning confocal microscopy shows that the proteins are preferentially attached inside the functional craters.
This work presents an original and straightforward technique for antibody immobilization onto a surface, keeping the antibody in a biologically reactive configuration. Self-assembly of molecular monolayers and plasma-based colloidal lithography were combined to create chemical nanopatterns on the surface of a biosensing device. This technique was employed to create an array of 100 nm wide motifs having a hexagonal 2-D crystalline structure, characterized by COOH-terminated nanospots in a CH3-terminated matrix. The quality control of the chemical nanopattern was carried out by combining atomic force microscopy, ellipsometry, and contact angle measurements. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay experiments were set up showing that the COOH/CH3 nanopatterned surface constrains the immobilization of the antibodies in a biologically reactive configuration, thus significantly improving the device performances as compared to those of more conventional nonpatterned COOH-terminated or CH3-terminated surfaces.
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