Crosslinking of floating colloidal monolayers

Abstract

Crosslinked colloidal monolayers are promising as templates, lithographic masks, filtration membranes, or membranes for controlled release rates in drug delivery. We demonstrate assembly of monodisperse micron-sized polystyrene (PS) beads at an air/water interface, which are transformed into crystalline monolayers using addition of surface-active agents. Vapor annealing methods with solvents (toluene and xylene) and crosslinking agents (divinylbenzene) were investigated regarding their ability to crosslink these floating monolayers directly at the interface, generating crosslinked membranes with crystal size up to 44 cm2, domain size up to 1.9 mm2, and nano-sized pores (100–300 nm). The demonstrated fabrication method emphasizes short fabrication time using a simple setup.Graphical abstract Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00706-017-1997-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The Prospects of Colloidal Lithography Towards Low-Cost and Scalable Sensors

“…These cutting polymeric links between spheres represent strong bridging obtained from microparticles, wherein that case, directional etching is beneficial to break polymer bridges connecting surrounding particles. These bonds have been reported in various downscaling methods, not only in the RIE process but also when even a slight increase in temperature involves heating with microwave [28], [46], [47]. To obtain dense monolayer particles, these initial bridges are supposed to be at an early stage of the sphere size reduction process.…”