Rubber Stamping for Plastic Electronics and Fiber Optics

Microcontact printing (μCP) is a low-cost technique for rubber stamping that combines the high spatial resolution of sophisticated forms of photolithography with capabilities (e.g., single-step patterning of large areas and nonplanar surfaces) that are not present in other approaches. μCP will be useful for applications where established methods are ineffective. Two areas are particularly promising: (1) plastic electronics, where the chemical incompatibility of the constituent materials with common photoresists and developers can preclude the use of photolithography, and where μCP with rotating cylindrical stamps forms an excellent match with the type of reel-to-reel processing that is envisioned for these systems; and (2) new classes of optical-fiber and microcapillarybased devices, where μCP allows highresolution (∼0.2 μm) circuits, photomasks, and actuators to be printed directly on the highly curved surfaces of cylinders with submillimeter diameters. This article describes some highlights of our work in these and related areas.