Micro embossing of ceramic green substrates for micro devices

Multilayered ceramic substrates with embedded micro patterns are becoming increasingly important, for example, in harsh environment electronics and microfluidic devices. Fabrication of these embedded micro patterns, such as micro channels, cavities and vias, is a challenge. This study focuses on the process of patterning micro features on ceramic green substrates using micro embossing. A ceramic green tape that possessed near-zero shrinkage in the x-y plane was used, six layers of which were laminated as the embossing substrate. The process parameters that impact on the pattern fidelity were investigated and optimized in this study. Micro features with line-width as small as several micrometers were formed on the ceramic green substrates. The dynamic thermomechanical analysis indicated that extending the holding time at certain temperature range would harden the green substrates with little effect on improving the embossing fidelity. Ceramic substrates with embossed micro patterns were obtained after co-firing. The embedded micro channels were also obtained by laminating the green tapes on the embossed substrates.