Application Of Micro Hot Embossing For MEMS Structures

MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) products are being spread from laboratory to industries. But Silicon-based MEMS products are usually expensive and not suitable for low cost production. Hence, there is an emerging need in terms of cost effectiveness to transfer MEMS from silicon-based materials to other materials, such as glasses and polymers. Micro hot embossing is expected to be a novel technique for producing MEMS components/products with low cost, and will potentially find wide applications in micro fluidics, biomedical and micro optical areas. In this paper, a hot embossing instrument is illustrated and is used for the process development of micro/nano structure forming with polycarbonate (PC) and Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) by using the Nickel mold. Fabrications of micro vertical reflecting mirrors and cantilevers for an 8×8 optical switch have been carried out, replication of micro grooves and pyramid cavities with nanometer precision for passive alignment of optical fibers and micro ball lenses have been performed as well. The results show that hot embossing is a promising technology for cost effective micro/nano fabrications of MEMS.