Versatile approach for integrative and functionalized tubes by strain engineering of nanomembranes on polymers

A generic approach to engineer tubular micro-/nanostructures out of many different materials with tunable diameters and lengths, by precisely releasing and rolling up functional nanomembranes on polymers, was developed. The thick polymer nanomembranes deposited with 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than TECs show that the nanomembranes form into wrinkled structures upon detachment from the substrate. The tube diameter as a function of the film thickness agrees with the curve for a strain difference of 0.5%, which implies that the stress state is well-controllable by tuning the growth rate. It is also found that mode intensities and positions can easily be tuned by the number of rotations, film thickness, and the local environment. The critical frequency is found to be sensitive to the environment of the tubes, which allows the determination of viscosity and detection of organisms.