A multilens measurement platform for high-throughput adhesion measurements

Current high-throughput methodologies for measuring interfacial adhesion typically rely on serial or sequential testing of discrete or continuous libraries. We have developed a measurement platform that employs an array of micro-lenses to simultaneously measure adhesion at multiple points on a planar specimen library. This technique relies on the accurate measurement of the overall lens array displacement, rather than load and individual lens contact areas to quantify the work of adhesion using the Johnson, Kendall and Roberts (JKR) model. We demonstrate the ability of this technique to measure the work of adhesion (loading) and energy release rate (unloading) for a polydimethylsiloxane lens array against glass, and we compare our work of adhesion measurements to the traditional single-lens geometry. We find the work of adhesion measured with the multilens array is 18.9 mJ m −2 ± 9.4 mJ m −2 compared to 20 mJ m −2 ± 5 mJ m −2 for a single-lens experiment. Also, the micro-lens array deviates from the JKR model when the lens array displacement is comparable to lens height.