Fabrication of Switches on Polymer-Based by Hot Embossing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel fabrication method for electrostatic switches on polymer substrates using hot embossing, involving metal deposition, photolithography, and embedding techniques to create MEMS devices on PMMA.

Contribution

It presents a new manufacturing process that embeds metal layers into polymers via hot embossing, enabling MEMS device fabrication on polymer materials.

Findings

Successful fabrication of electrostatic switches on PMMA.

The hot embed process effectively embeds metal layers into polymers.

Demonstrated viability of polymer-based MEMS devices.

Abstract

In MEMS technology, most of the devices are fabricated on glass or silicon substrate. However, this research presents a novel manufacture method that is derived from conventional hot embossing technology to fabricate the electrostatic switches on polymer material. The procedures of fabrication involve the metal deposition, photolithography, electroplating, hot embossing and hot embed techniques. The fundamental concept of the hot embed technology is that the temperature should be increased above Tg of polymer, and the polymer becomes plastic and viscous and could be molded. According to the fundamental concept, the metal layer on the silicon/glass substrate could be embedded into polymer material during the hot embossing process. Afterward, the metal layer is bonded together with the polymer after removing the substrate in the de-embossing step. Finally, the electrostatic switch is fabricated on polymethylmethacrylate(PMMA) material to demonstrate the novel method.