Facile Fabrication of a Flexible Patterned Film with Diverse Micro-/Nanostructures via Electrohydrodynamic Patterning

To achieve facile fabrication of a flexible patterned film via electrohydrodynamic patterning (EHDP), a semiconducting photocurable resin (SCPR) was developed based on an optimized designed hyperbranched polymer and a photocurable monomer. It showed a low interface tension (34.185 mN/m), low viscosity (9.21 mPa·s), high dielectric constant (27.6), suitable conductivity (1.63 × 10-5 S/cm), favorable wettability (a contact angle of 19.3°), and film-forming property on an ITO-coated substrate. Benefitting from its excellent properties, a flexible patterned film with diverse micro-/nanostructures, including high-aspect ratio and/or small-feature-size pillar arrays, curvature-controllable aspheric microlens arrays, and hierarchical ordered pillar/pillar arrays, was rapidly manufactured via EHDP. Moreover, the characteristic wavelength decreased with the increasing applied voltage, decreasing electrode spacing, and increasing liquid film thickness, which was perfectly in accord with the leaky dielectric model of EHDP. This research provides an effective strategy for rapidly manufacturing a flexible patterned film with diverse micro-/nanostructures.