Rapid replication of polymeric and metallic high aspect ratio microstructures using PDMS and LIGA technology

Abstract

This paper present a method of rapid replication of polymeric high aspect ratio microstructures (HARMs) and a method of rapid reproduction of metallic micromold inserts for HARMs using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) casting and standard LIGA processes. A high aspect ratio (HAR) metallic micromold insert, featuring a variety of test microstructures made of electroplated nickel with 15:1 height-to-width ratio for 300 μm microstructures, was fabricated by the standard LIGA process using deep X-ray lithography (DXRL). A 10:1 mixture of pre-polymer PDMS and a curing agent were cast onto the HAR metallic micromold insert, cured and peeled off to create reverse images of the HAR metallic micromold insert in PDMS. In addition to the replication of polymeric HARMs, replicated PDMS HARMS were coated with a metallic sacrificial layer and electroplated in nickel to reproduce another metallic micromold insert. This method can be used to rapidly and massively reproduce HAR metallic micromold inserts in low cost mass production manner without further using DXRL.