New method creates microstructured surfaces

These surfaces, made by self-assembly of carbon nanotubes, could exhibit a variety of properties including controllable mechanical stiffness and strength, or the ability to repel water in a certain direction.

‘We have demonstrated that mechanical forces can be used to direct nanostructures to form complex three-dimensional microstructures, and that we can independently control…the mechanical properties of the microstructures,’ said A. John Hart, the Mitsui Career Development Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and senior author of a paper describing the new technique in Nature Communications.

’We have a surface with exceptional stiffness, strength, and toughness relative to its density’

According to MIT, the technique works by inducing carbon nanotubes to bend as they grow with the material bending as it is produced by a chemical reaction.

The process begins by printing two patterns onto a substrate: one is a catalyst of carbon nanotubes; the second material modifies the growth rate of the nanotubes. By offsetting the two patterns, the researchers showed that the nanotubes bend into predictable shapes as they extend.