Surface wrinkling of plasma-exposed PDMS is caused by water vapor sorption: an optical environmental sensor
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Wrinkling of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has unlocked a plethora of technological applications, from tunable surface wetting to photonic response. Surface undulations with prescribed wavelength and amplitude are excited by in-plane mechanical compression of bilayers comprising a thin, stiff outer skin on a soft elastomer or gel. Plasma oxidation has become ubiquitous for creating such thin (≈10 nm) glassy interfacial layers. Spontaneous wrinkling can occur even in the absence of external mechanical strain fields, which has been rationalized in terms of a thermally-induced strain that accompanies the expansion-contraction cycle of such laminate films. It is shown that exposure to water vapor is, instead, responsible for surface wrinkling, due to the swelling the oxidized skin layer. This interpretation of surface wrinkling provides a rationale for the apparent experimental variability of the wrinkling process. This hypothesis is verified experimentally by observing and modelling the spatiotemporal evolution of the reversible wrinkling process under a range of controlled environmental conditions. From a practical standpoint, it is found that this effect provides for a facile approach for humidity sensing through structural color changes arising from the diffractive wrinkled skin.
Date Issued
2025-11-19
Date Acceptance
2025-06-01
Citation
Advanced Functional Materials, 2025, 35 (47)
ISSN
1616-301X
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Advanced Functional Materials
Volume
35
Issue
47
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Author(s). Advanced Functional Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Subjects
Chemistry
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Chemistry, Physical
COMPLEX
DIFFUSION
FILM
Materials Science
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
ORDERED STRUCTURES
OXIDATION
PATTERNS
PDMS
Physical Sciences
Physics
Physics, Applied
Physics, Condensed Matter
plasma
POLYDIMETHYLSILOXANE
relative humidity
reversible
Science & Technology
Science & Technology - Other Topics
sensor
structural color
Technology
wrinkling
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
2509167
Date Publish Online
2025-06-18