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Sweet Microchips New Technology Enables Surface Printing with Sugar

Update time : 2022-11-28 11:04:59

Can ordinary table sugar transfer microchip patterns to new and nontraditional surfaces? In the latest issue of the journal Science, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report a method for using sugar to transfer on almost arbitrary common surfaces, a technique that opens up new possibilities for new materials and microstructures in fields such as electronics, optics and biomedical engineering.

Semiconductor chips, micropatterned surfaces and electronics all rely on microprinting, a process in which precise but tiny patterns, ranging from a millionth to a billionth of a meter wide, are placed on surfaces to give them new properties. Traditionally, these micro-patterns, made up of metals and other materials, have been printed on flat silicon wafers. But as the possibilities for semiconductor chips and smart materials expand, these complex, tiny patterns need to be printed on new, non-traditional, non-flat surfaces. Printing patterns directly on these surfaces is tricky, so scientists have transferred prints, but precise transfer to more generally arbitrarily curved surfaces remains elusive.
The researchers found that a simple combination of caramel and corn syrup could do just that. When dissolved in a small amount of water, this sugar mixture can be poured over a miniature pattern on a flat surface. Once the water evaporates, the candy hardens and can be lifted off with the pattern embedded. The imprinted candy is then placed on the new surface and melted. The combination of sugar and corn syrup remains highly viscous as it melts, allowing the pattern to maintain its alignment as it flows over the curves and edges. The sugar is then washed off with water, leaving only the pattern behind.
Using this technique, called Reflow Driven Flexible Transfer (REFLEX), microcircuit graphics can be transferred like a stencil, allowing scientists or manufacturers to etch and fill the material they need in the right place. Patterned materials can be transferred from the original chip to fibers or microbeads for potential biomedical or micro-robotic research, or to the sharp or curved surfaces of new devices.
Using REFLEX, researchers have successfully imprinted the word "NIST" in microscopic gold letters on the tip of a large head of needle and on a strand of human hair. In another example, a 1-micron-diameter disk was successfully transferred to the fibrous fibers of milkweed seeds. In the presence of a magnet, the magnetically printed fibers reacted, indicating that the transfer had been successful.

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