Photolithographic patterning of cellulose: a versatile dual-tone photoresist for advanced applications

Abstract

In many areas of science and technology, patterned films and surfaces play a key role in engineering and development of advanced materials. Here, we present a versatile toolbox that provides an easy patterning method for cellulose thin films by means of photolithography and enzymatic digestion. A patterned UV-illumination of trimethylsilyl cellulose thin films containing small amounts of a photo acid generator leads to a desilylation reaction and thus to the formation of cellulose in the irradiated areas. Depending on the conditions of development, either negative and positive type cellulose structures can be obtained, offering lateral resolutions down to the single-digit micro meter range by means of contact photolithography. In order to highlight the potential of this material for advanced patterning techniques, cellulose structures with sub-µm resolution are fabricated by means of two-photon absorption lithography. Moreover, these photochemically structured cellulose thin films are successfully implemented as dielectric layers in prototype organic thin film transistors. Such photopatternable dielectric layers are crucial for the realization of electrical interconnects for demanding organic device architectures.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10570-014-0471-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Cellulose‐Derivative‐Based Gate Dielectric for High‐Performance Organic Complementary Inverters

“…Another benefit of this material is that TMSC is also soluble in eco‐friendly solvents such as ethylacetate or propylene glycol in high concentration (as recently reported in ref. ) paving the way toward an eco‐friendly application process without the need of halogenated or aromatic solvents.…”

Homogeneous cellulose thin films by regeneration of cellulose xanthate: properties and characterization

“…Therefore, they have been proposed as supports for biosensors, as matrix for catalysis as well as material for optoelectronic devices such as transistors and solar cells (Blomstedt et al 2007;Filpponen et al 2012;Niegelhell et al 2016;Orelma et al 2011Orelma et al , 2012Reishofer et al 2017;Taajamaa et al 2013;Wolfberger et al 2015). Further, these films have been employed as models to investigate and to better understand interactions of water with cellulose, particularly in the context of cell wall structure and their relation to industrially applied drying processes (Ehmann et al 2015;Niinivaara et al 2015Niinivaara et al , 2016.…”

“…However, although TMSC is a commercial cellulose derivative, whose production is in principle scalable, it is a rather expensive material. Although eco-solvents such as ethyl acetate have been proposed as solvents for TMSC, the use of an aqueous cellulose solution for film formation would be desirable (Wolfberger et al 2014(Wolfberger et al , 2015.…”

On the formation of Bi 2 S 3 -cellulose nanocomposite films from bismuth xanthates and trimethylsilyl-cellulose

“…Since many bismuth xanthates are readily soluble in apolar organic solvents, trimethylsilyl cellulose (TMSC) was chosen as polysaccharide due to its excellent solubility in aprotic solvents at high degrees of substitution with TMS groups. TMSC has several further advantages in this context: its solubility can be fine-tuned by the degree of substitution, it is rather light-and thermostable under exclusion of air/moisture (Wolfberger et al, 2015) and it is a good film forming polymer (T. Mohan et al, 2013;Orelma, Filpponen, Johansson, Laine, & Rojas, 2011). Further, the conversion into cellulose proceeds via a gas phase reaction employing vaporous HCl (Ehmann et al, 2015;Eero Kontturi & Lankinen, 2010).…”