Wrinkling membranes with compliant boundaries

Abstract

Wrinkled patterns are useful for a wide variety of technological applications ranging from microfluidics to microelectronics. In order to use wrinkled patterns for these applications, both the location and the morphology, i.e. wavelength and amplitude of the wrinkled features, must be precisely controlled. In this paper, a surface was fabricated by placing a thin, flat, continuous glassy film on a topographically-patterned elastomeric substrate to control different wrinkling morphologies and mechanisms on a single surface. With this configuration, we achieved unique surfaces with two distinct regions of wrinkling morphology without changing the film material properties; a region where the film is unsupported and the wrinkling mechanics is dictated only by the film property and the pattern geometry, and a region where the film is supported and wrinkling length scales are dictated by the film and elastomer properties. We demonstrated that the wrinkling wavelength and amplitude scales with geometry and applied strain differently and can be independently controlled in each of the distinct regions.