Buckling patterns of thin films on curved compliant substrates with applications to morphogenesis and three-dimensional micro-fabrication

Xi CHEN*, Jie YIN

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

178 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Self-assembled buckling patterns of thin films on compliant substrates have been subjected to extensive studies and shown great promise in micro-fabrication. However, most previous studies were limited to planar substrates, and the study of buckling of films on curved substrates has not received sufficient attention. With the constraining effect from various types of substrate curvature, numerous new types of buckling morphologies may emerge which not only enable true three-dimensional (3D) fabrication of microstructures and microdevices, but also have important implications for the morphogenesis of quite a few natural and biological systems. We review the scientific aspects of elastic buckling of thin films on several representative curved substrates, emphasizing the critical effect of substrate curvature, its interaction with other material/system parameters, ways to control the buckles based on mechanical and physical principles, and bridge them with prospective applications in biology, biomedical engineering, and small-scale fabrication.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5667-5680
Number of pages14
JournalSoft Matter
Volume6
Issue number22
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Nov 2010
Externally publishedYes

Funding

The study is supported by National Science Foundation CMMI-CAREER-0643726. J. Y. acknowledges the support of the American Academy of Mechanics and the Robert M. and Mary Haythornthwaite Foundation. X. C. is also supported by a Chang Jiang Scholar Program of Ministry of Education of China, by a World Class University program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (R32-2008-000-20042-0), and by National Natural Science Foundation of China (50928601).

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