Micro hot embossing for replication of micro structures

Micro hot embossing is a novel technique for low-cost and mass-production of MEMS components in plastics, and will potentially find wide applications in optical communications and micro fluidics areas. The goal of this research is to develop a micro hot embossing process for high quality pattern transfer from masters to polymer materials. This paper illustrates the architecture design of a hot embossing instrument and process development for micro/nano structure forming. The material used is polycarbonate (PC), and the molds are silicon masters, which are anisotropically etched or deep ICP RIE etched. Replication of micro grooves for passive alignment of optical fibers and micro lenses has been carried out; the results demonstrate technological feasibility and promising suitability of micro/nano hot embossing for low-cost and mass-production of optical communication components.