Dear All,
      I have had this methanol surfactant or lubricant problem for a while,
and couldn't figure out why. I hope you can give me some hints.
      I am trying to align and attach a thin-layer of PDMS (100 um thick)
onto a glass slide. As suggested by many others, I applied 99.9% methanol
onto the surface of PDMS film after oxygen plasma treatment (60sec @ 30W),
then bring the PDMS film with glass slide together. Immediately after
alignment (less than 1 min), I place them in an oven (85C) for 15-20 min, in
order to evaporate methanol.
      But after that, I only found that PDMS doesn't stick to glass slide at
all. I mean, not just certain areas don't stick, it is the entire piece of
PDMS doesn't stay on the glass slide.
      In contrast, if I don't apply methanol in between, PDMS would have a
pretty good adhesion on glass slides.
      Has anyone had such problem before? What would you think the problem
is? Should I clean my glass slides further? Should I try purer methanol? Any
comments will be appreciated. Thanks.


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Best Regards,
Yu Xiang