Archim Wolfberger

Photolithographic patterning of cellulose: a versatile dual-tone photoresist for advanced applications.

In many areas of science and technology, patterned films and surfaces play a key role in engineering and development of advanced materials. Here, we present a versatile toolbox that provides an easy patterning method for cellulose thin films by means of photolithography and enzymatic digestion. A patterned UV-illumination of trimethylsilyl cellulose thin films containing small amounts of a photo acid generator leads to a desilylation reaction and thus to the formation of cellulose in the irradiated areas. Depending on the conditions of development, either negative and positive type cellulose structures can be obtained, offering lateral resolutions down to the single-digit micro meter range by means of contact photolithography. In order to highlight the potential of this material for advanced patterning techniques, cellulose structures with sub-µm resolution are fabricated by means of two-photon absorption lithography. Moreover, these photochemically structured cellulose thin films are successfully implemented as dielectric layers in prototype organic thin film transistors. Such photopatternable dielectric layers are crucial for the realization of electrical interconnects for demanding organic device architectures.

UV-induced modulation of the conductivity of polyaniline: towards a photo-patternable charge injection layer for structured organic light emitting diodes

In macromolecular electronics the organic material should offer—besides the desired electronic properties—the possibility of lateral patterning. Here, we report on a novel polyaniline derivative bearing photosensitive N-formamide groups. UV illumination of this polymeric material leads to a decarbonylation reaction resulting in polyaniline which can be subsequently protonated to yield the conductive emeraldine salt. Due to the fact that the conductivity depends on the conversion of the photoreaction, a selective adjustment of the conductivity by means of UV light is feasible. These photo-induced conductivity changes were corroborated in thin films by conductive AFM measurements. Further, we demonstrate the versatility of this polymer with respect to a patterned modification of the conductivity as well as its application as a photo-patternable charge injection layer for structured OLEDs. This makes the new polymer an interesting candidate for electrodes and interconnects in various organic electronic devices.

Cellulose-Derivative-Based Gate Dielectric for High- Performance Organic Complementary Inverters

been realized using organic thin-fi lm transistors (OTFTs) as the essential element. In the majority of these applications OTFTs are integrated either in the form of arrays or as digital logic. The fundamental building block of digital logic is the inverter, a circuit that inverts an input signal. Much work has been devoted in the last fi ve years to design unipolar inverters using p-typeonly OTFTs. [ 18‐23 ] Unfortunately, unipolar logic based on single gate OTFTs always suffers from high power consumption and low noise margin coupled with high noise margin variability and therefore impedes the fabrication of complex circuits having hundreds or more logic gates. [ 19,22,23 ] In this context, it stands

Cross-linking of ROMP derived polymers using the two-photon induced thiol–ene reaction: towards the fabrication of 3D-polymer microstructures

Ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) has become an important tool for the synthesis of highly defined polymers and various polymer architectures. In the present work, the residual double bonds in ROMP derived polymeric materials were exploited for a photoinduced thiol–ene reaction in order to achieve a selective cross-linking of the macromolecules. Besides the photoinduced thiol–ene reaction, which was investigated by means of FT-IR measurements, also the resulting change in the refractive index was studied by spectroscopic ellipsometry. To demonstrate the versatility of this reaction for the realization of 3D polymeric microstructures, films of poly(norbornene dicarboxylic acid, dimethylester) were structured via two-photon induced cross-linking. The accessibility and reactivity of the polynorbornene main chain CC double bonds in the thiol–ene reaction pave the way towards novel strategies for the realization of polymer 3D microstructures.

Photoregeneration of trimethylsilyl cellulose as a tool for microstructuring ultrathin cellulose supports.

Microstructured thin films based on cellulose, the most abundant biopolymer on Earth, have been obtained by UV-irradiation of acid-labile trimethylsilyl cellulose thin films in the presence of N-hydroxynaphtalimide triflate as photoacid generator. We demonstrate that this photoregeneration process can be exploited for the manufacture of cellulose patterns having feature sizes down to 1 μm, with potential applications in life sciences.