Fabrication of 1D nanochannels on thermoplastic substrates using microchannel compression

We present a new method to fabricate one-dimensional (1D) nanochannels on a thermoplastic substrate. This method has two main steps. First, a mold with microscale features is used to replicate microchannels on a thermoplastic substrate. Second, the fabricated microchannel is compressed to a 1D nanochannel at a temperature above the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the themoplastics. The effects of compression temperature, compression pressure, retaining time and loading rate on microchannel compression have been studied. Results have shown that a 1D nanochannel of 1---30 μm wide and 200---300 nm deep can be readily fabricated by using this method.