Towards Nanoscale 3d Printing of Pdms-Like Polymers

Inside a vacuum chamber, we froze hexamethyldisiloxane vapors into thin-films of ice. We then patterned and crossed-linked the ice-film into silicon containing polymers by electron beam exposure. The unreacted hexamethyldisiloxane is vaporized at room temperature, and the cross-linked siloxane remains as a stable thin-film on the supporting silicon substrate. The chemical composition of the cross-linked siloxane is similar to polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer, which is used in many transducers and sensors applications.