A versatile approach to fabricate ordered heterogeneous bull's-eye-like microstructure arrays

In this paper, ordered heterogeneous bull's-eye-like microstructure arrays were fabricated through a simple two-step method on gold substrate with patterned self-assemble monolayers (SAMs). First, we prepared ordered polymer dot arrays on the SAMs patterned gold substrate by SAMs-direct dewetting. Subsequently, by manipulating concentration-controlled dewetting process, ordered ring arrays were obtained on the dot arrays patterned surface under the protection of water droplets. Namely, ordered bull's-eye-like structure arrays were fabricated successfully. The mechanism of these two kinds of dewetting process has been investigated in detail. And due to these two steps were independent, different materials could be simply introduced to the current system. Therefore, ordered homogeneous and heterogeneous bull's-eye-like structure arrays such as poly(N-vinylcarbazole) (PVK) (dot)/PVK (ring), PVK/5,12-ditetradecylquinolino[2,3-b]acridine-7,14(5H,12H)-dione (DTQA), and PVK/Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles were obtained. This straightforward method may open up new possibilities for practical use of microchips with binary heterogeneous structure arrays.