PLASMA ACTIVATED BONDING AND IMPRINTING OF POLYMER BY HOT EMBOSSING FOR PACKAGING APPLICATIONS

Hot embossing is a well-acknowledged low cost, high resolution, large area 3D patterning process for polymers. This technique allows rapid prototyping for high volume production of fully patterned substrates for a wide range of thermoplastic polymer materials. The advantages of using polymer substrates over common Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) processing materials like glass, silicon or quartz are: bio-compatible surfaces, easy manufacturability, low cost for high volume production, suitable for use in micro- and nano-fabrication, low conductivity, wide range of optical properties just to name a few. The article will present experimental results on HE processes with PMMA, mr-I8030, mr-L6000 and NEB22 on full 8" wafer sizes. Packaging of the imprinted features is a key technology for a wide variety of optical and fluidic applications in the μm and nm-range: m-TAS, micro-mixers, micro-reactors, electrophoresis cells, switches, data storage, etc. Most packaging techniques employed today, use glue material or high temperature sintering methods to bond structured polymer wafers together. These techniques are influencing the appearance of the sub-micron structures. A promising low-temperature polymer-to-polymer direct bonding technique utilizing the cleaning and surface activating behavior of plasma should be established here.