Abstract
The hot embossing of polymers is one of the most popular methods for replicating high-precision structures on thermoplastic polymer substrates at the micro-/nanoscale. However, the fabrication of hybrid multiscale microstructures by using the traditional isothermal hot embossing process is challenging. Therefore, in this study, we propose a novel nonuniform heating method for the hot embossing of polymers with multiscale microstructures. In this method, a thin graphene-based heater with a nonuniform heating function, a facility that integrates the graphene-based heater and gas-assisted hot embossing, and a roll of thermoplastic film are employed. Under appropriate process conditions, multiscale polymer microstructure patterns are fabricated through a single-step hot embossing process. The quality of the multiscale microstructure patterns replicated is uniform and high. The technique has great potential for the rapid and flexible fabrication of multiscale microstructure patterns on polymer substrates.
Highlights
In recent years, polymer micro- and nanostructure devices have attracted increasing interest owing to their many potential applications
One of the methods for fabricating large-area polymer micro- and nanostructure devices is the hot embossing process, where the structures of a master mold are copied onto a polymer substrate
Effectively and uniformly replicating large-area multiscale microstructures is difficult in the polymer hot-embossing process
Summary
Polymer micro- and nanostructure devices have attracted increasing interest owing to their many potential applications. One of the methods for fabricating large-area polymer micro- and nanostructure devices is the hot embossing process, where the structures of a master mold are copied onto a polymer substrate. This process is costeffective and facilitates mass production; it is widely used for fabricating optical films, biochips, small sensors, etc. Many effective polymer hot embossing methods have been proposed and developed, such as plate-to-plate hot embossing [1–3], gas-assisted hot embossing [4–7], ultrasonic hot embossing [8–11], roller hot embossing [12–15], soft mold-based hot embossing [16–19], and rapid hot embossing [20–22] Most of these methods are isothermal hot-embossing processes with a uniform heating system. Controlling and increasing the yield and stability of the polymer hot embossing process with multiscale microstructures are difficult
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