Segregation of silicone acrylate from acrylate mixture at resin–mold interface and its effect on UV embossing

When silicone diacrylate was added in small amount (<5 wt.%) to ultraviolet (UV) curable formulations containing other oligomeric diacrylates, there was segregation of the silicone additive at the solid substrate–formulation interface. The amount was quantified by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurement of the UV cured film surface composition. The effect of silicone diacrylate concentration, resin formulation and substrate polarity on silicone surface excess was systematically studied. Young’s–Gibbs adsorption theory was applied to the prediction of the silicone surface excess at the solid substrate interface for these oligomeric mixtures. Further, we proposed a simplified Young’s– Gibbs adsorption theory equation to predict the variation of surface excess from only formulation surface tension and substrate critical surface tension. The selective segregation is beneficial to demolding in UVembossing since only small amount of release added can result in large decrease of the mold–resin interfacial energy difference leading to easy demolding and high replication fidelity.