I want to apply a coating to a metallic surface with micro-grates. I want the coating to be applied only on the top of the grates and not intrude into the ridges. Can anyone please tell me how can I do this with a facile and cost effective method like spraying or deep coating?
Salar Jabbary Fill the micro-grates with a liquid that should not interact with your coating material. Now, apply spray coating. The filled liquid would hopefully not let the coating material go down into the grates. When you have done with spray coating, remove the filled liquid either via heating or room temperature-evaporation. This just an idea. I don't know if it fits for your system. Anyways, research is based on ideas, so you can try it.
You might straightforward vapor sil(ox)anisation. You will find the procedure in a number of our publications.
Gulfam Raza Thank you for your answer. I have actually thought of this idea but the problem is that because the grates are created by laser ablation and are not very precise (unlike the ones created by photolithography) and they are in the order of 30-40 microns so this method won't be accurate enough.
Michael Schmitt Thank you for your answer. I will definitely study them.
Alan F Rawle Thank you for your answer. It is mainly comprised of polyurethane and silica nanoparticles.
Salar Jabbary
You can screen print lines of 40 -50 microns. Not easy but I've done this before in the LCD industry in the 1980's. Needs the finest mesh screens.
Salar Jabbary yeah, then my suggested method seems to be almost impossible due to random-like nano-structures of your substrate. Perhaps, you need to improve the surface structures. Also, above suggestions by Sir Alan F Rawle and Michael Schmitt should be considered seriously. Best of Luck!
Hi - you could try transfer lamination. If you can give the material some adhesion properties
Coat onto silicon paper & dry.
Then laminate to metallic surface and grates.
Remove paper and coating should just remain on raised areas.
Tom Kerchiss Thank you for your answer. What do you mean by laminate? please elaborate. And after I add the hardner and the coating dries it is not possible to be applied on a surface.
You may want to check PDMS stamping for this kind of applications.
1- Prepare the PDMS Stamp
2- Dip into the coating solution
3- Stamp on the surface using a guide to get a better alignment. You can do this under a microscope. You will need to prepare a thin PDMS stamp to be able to use it under the microscope.
Article Simple Patterning via Adhesion between a Buffered‐Oxide Etch...
Article Vacuum-assisted microcontact printing (μCP) for aligned patt...
Conference Paper Micro-scale aligning and stamping system for PDMS stamps
Alternatively, you will need to go for basic photo-lithography using photo-resist to protect the areas you want to keep clean. If you will decide for this path. Send me a message, I will guide you.
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