Engineered biomimicry: polymeric replication of surfacefeatures found on insects

摘要

By combining the modified conformal-evaporated-film-by-rotation (M-CEFR) technique with nickel electroform-ing, we have produced master negatives of nonplanar biotemplates. An approximately 250-nm-thick conformal coating of nanocrystaline nickel is deposited on a surface structure of interest found in class Insecta, and the coating is then reinforced with a roughly 60-pm-thick structural layer of nickel by electroforming. This structural layer endows the M-CEFR coating with the mechanical robustness necessary for casting or stamping multiple polymer replicas of the biotemplate. We have made master negatives of blowfly corneas, beetle elytrons, and butterfly wings.