Date of Submission

Spring 2015

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Chemistry

Project Advisor 1

Christopher LaFratta

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The use of photoinitiated polymerization is constantly growing due to its large number of applications ranging from 3-D printers to nanotechnology. An interesting application of photoinitiated polymerization reactions is direct laser writing (DLW) lithography, which is a useful way to fabricate microscopic patterns for lab-on-a-chip devices. The goal of this project is to synthesize and characterize a novel photoinitiator for the improvement of the resolution of DLW by using an ultralow one-photon absorption technique. The photoinitiator is a derivative of benzoin methyl ether, where two methyl thioether substituents are introduced. Single-photon polymerization was performed in a liquid acrylate resin with a continuous wave 405 nm diode laser focused to a point using an optical microscope. Since the photoinitiator has an ultralow absorption at 405 nm, the photopolymerization is achieved only at the focusing spot of the microscope objective. Here, we show that this technique enables the fabrication of higher resolution microstructures for lab-on-a-chip devices.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
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