Electrochemical Erasing Using a Polymer Lithography Editor for the Fabrication of Photoactive Devices

Electrochemical erasing of conductive coatings at microscale for the fabrication of functional devices on flexible and hard surfaces is demonstrated. The nanoporous pyramidal-shaped nano- and microscale polyacrylamide hydrogel PLE probes allowed delivery of electrochemical etchants to the surface, providing on-demand maskless patterning at microscale. Highly efficient erasing (silver and copper metals erasing efficiency ≈ 100%), areal erasing rate ≈ 80 μm2/s, and pressure dependent spatial erasing feature dimensions between 3 μm to many tens of microns on metal surfaces allowed for the fabrication of microelectrodes of various geometries. Overall, PLE-based microscale erasing allowed for rapid and accessible fabrication of organic electron–hole carrier pair-based microphotodetector, as well as the assembly of LED on flexible and rigid ITO substrates.