Direct reproduction of 3D microstructures using a hybrid approach; by creation of master-patterns and metallic molds for embossing

Abstract

The fabrication of a three-dimensional (3D) metallic mold for multi-production of microstructures was studied to settle the problem of long processing time and efforts in 3D fabrication based on the accumulation of layer-by-layer. Even though two-photon induced polymerization (TPP) has been considered as a unique way for fabrication of precise real 3D microstructures such as 3D filters, 3D photonic crystals, microlens arrays, it required considerable effort and much processing time inevitably for these fabrications. Therefore, a simple and effective method was proposed using a metallic mold in this work. 3D micro-master patterns were prepared using TPP, and then counter-shaped Ni molds were created using an electroforming process. With this hybrid approach, 3D microstructures were much more easily and quickly reproduced by hot-forming compared to the TPP approach was used only. In this work, we report on the processing parameters used to fabricate a metallic mold and reproduce 3D microstructures using the mold. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.