Formation and control of line defects caused by tectonics of water droplet arrays during self-organized honeycomb-patterned polymer film formation

Abstract

This study describes the formation of macro-scale defects of the honeycomb-patterned polymer film and we discovered two types of new line defects which differ from the defects reported in the past studies. We examined the formation mechanisms of the line defects and clarified two types of formation mechanisms of the “Divergent” mode line defects and the “Convergent” mode line defects caused by the “tectonics” of water droplet arrays on polymer solutions. The regions causing the macro-scale line defects are made clear in the phase diagram represented by the radius and the density of the micro-scale water droplets. In addition, the results of our calculations made it possible to theoretically predict the water droplet growth time for the water droplets to grow to the ideal size for uniform packing that is necessary for fabrication of the defect-free honeycomb-patterned polymer film. With the use of these techniques, A4-sized, defect-free, honeycomb-patterned polymer films can be fabricated.