Multi-curvature liquid meniscus in a na between intermolecular and surface forc

re 0 n t m all. om us ns fro ls. du be well described by the Young–Laplace equation. On a nanoscopic scale, however, long-range intermolecular inter-fluctuation of the density profile across the channel direction the same polymer were formed on gold substrate using the same method. Into these channels, a low-viscosity liquid prepolymer OA or polyethylene glycol duced by capillarity-driven quently photo-crosslinked to a meniscus which was then croscopy (SEM) after removal strate. The dimensions of the to 800 nm in width at a fixed h for observing the capillary nstrated in a method called IMIC) using an elastomeric xane (PDMS).15 For nano-channels, it is difficult to achieve the sub-100 nm features due to PAPER www.rsc.org/loc | Lab on a ChipFigures S1–S5. See DOI: 10.1039/b911271eand an increased contribution from long range intermolecular forces near the solid wall.10–13 To elucidate the interplay low tensile modulus (1.8 MPa) of the PDMS. Several researchers have reported that PDMS suffers from deformation, buckling, or collapse of small features when peeled from the original master.16 The key advantage of the method introduced here, therefore, is the formation of reversibly sealed nano-channels by spontaneous attachment of a well-defined, high-resolution PUA nanochannel onto a bottom layer (i.e., the substrate, either PUA or gold) in a highly reproducible manner.1