Engineering the Microstructure of Organic Energetic Materials

The initiation sensitivity is highly dependent on void structures within an energetic material. It is technically feasible to modify the initiation sensitivity by lithographically defining the size and distribution of included voids on the micro- and nanoscale. We proposed a method to pattern organic energetic materials using microcontact printing of self-assembled monolayers. Pentaerythritol tetranitrate is spin-coated from solution as films onto patterned self-assembled monolayers. Images are presented for arbitrary patterns created based on the surface chemistry and concentration of the energetic material.