Pressure/Electric-Field-Assisted Micro/Nanocasting Method for Replicating a Lotus Leaf

An electric field-aided process was introduced for a curable casting process. As a micro/nanosized pattern mask, a lotus leaf, which has a hierarchical structure, was used. The process consists of two steps: (1) applying an electric field to a liquid polymer and solidifying the polymer for use as a negative mold, and (2) using the negative polymer mold to fabricate a replicated poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) surface in the original shape of the lotus leaf. In this process, the applied electric field induces unstable vibration of the liquid polymer, due to electrokinetic phenomena. The electrokinetic fluid motion resulted in well-replicated PEO surfaces. The quality of the fabricated surface was highly dependent on the applied field and pressure. We believe that this technique improves the quality of the standard nanocasting method and will be useful for fabricating micro/nanosized structures.