Fabrication and characterisation of geometry-controlled Cu microwires in porous poly(methyl methacrylate) templates using melt co-drawing and electrochemical deposition techniques

• Published in: Materials & design 2020-03, Vol.188, p.108453, Article 108453
• Main Authors: Yang, Bo, Sun, Laixi, Wei, Wei, Niu, Gao, Chen, Shufan, Wu, Weidong, Li, Bo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Coding array; Cu microwires; Fibre; Melt co-drawing; PMMA template
• ISSN: 0264-1275; 1873-4197
• DOI: 10.1016/j.matdes.2019.108453

The fabrication of geometry-controlled Cu microwires (CuMWs) using melt co-drawing and electrochemical deposition techniques is reported in this study; the resulting CuMWs have good surface quality and integrity. By designing and arranging the poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/polystyrene (PS) and PMMA fibres artificially, porous PMMA templates with different coding orders (e.g. “1 × 1”, “3 × 3”, “5 × 5”, and “7 × 7”) are created after multi-step drawing followed by the dissolution of the inner PS. With these templates, coding arrays of CuMWs with diameters of 2–10 μm are fabricated. The geometries of the obtained templates and CuMWs arrays are shown to be consistent with the design values. This new approach extends the types and quality of CuMWs and makes it possible to devise extremely complex array structures with micro or even nano dimensions for diverse optical applications such as spectral sensing, laser phased arrays, and photonic crystal fibres. [Display omitted] •A convenient method is proposed for the growth of metallic micro/nanowire arrays in arbitrary coding patterns.•Coding porous poly(methyl methacrylate) templates with controllable pore diameters and spacing are fabricated successfully.•The fabricated copper microwires have excellent geometric integrity, surface quality, and purity.•The geometries of the obtained porous templates and copper microwire arrays are consistent with the design values.