Fracture-induced alignment of surface wrinkles

Abstract

We introduce a simple process for creating materials that produce osmotically-driven surface wrinkles with long-range alignment, sans lithographically-defined topography and selective oxidation. Mechanically-induced surface defects create stress discontinuities that convert the global biaxial stress state to local uniaxial stresses, producing aligned wrinkles across the surface. © 2008 The Royal Society of Chemistry.