Title:
MOLTEN-BASED 3-D DIRECTWRITE FABRICATION OF MICRO STRUCTURES
MOLTEN-BASED 3-D DIRECTWRITE FABRICATION OF MICRO STRUCTURES
Author(s)
Chen, Yining
Advisor(s)
Kardomateas, George A.
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Abstract
The micro fabrication is the backbone of information age. From phones people use daily to the satellite in the orbit, they all rely on the control unit, sensors that made by microfabrication techniques. With decades of rapid development, the micro fabrication technology has reached a dimension that no one can image in the past. The next state of art micro electric fabrication dimensions has reached 2nm which is 1/6000 that in 1970s. However, these fabrication techniques are mostly planar and become more and more expensive and make it only economically feasible for mass productions. Thus, it has difficulties in making 3D or very high aspect ratio structures due to it is mainly a 2D process. Meanwhile, the demand for 3D micro-structures or high aspect ratio microstructures is increasing in various fields, such as micro needles, micro antenna etc. In this dissertation, we develop a direct-write method to fabricate 3D micro-structures and high aspect ratio microstructures at low cost that can fill this gap. Our method is based on molten materials extruding from a nozzle by pressure to form microstructures on the substrates. These critical dimensions of the structures can be as small as hundred nanometer level while maintaining hundreds of aspect ratio. We explore the mechanism in the fabrication and realize precise control of the process. The bonding and mechanical strength of the fabricated structures are also strong enough to serve as senor or mold for sequential processes. It provides a unique method for micro device that has application in biomedical and microelectronics. The process can be stacked up together to fabricate more complex or more dense structures. Very high dense and aspect ratio structure arrays are readily fabricated. Moreover, we also develop a method to fabricate microneedle arrays. These micro needles arrays can serve as mold to get polymer replica which has many applications in biomedical field, such as medical drug/vaccine delivery, bio-signal monitoring, etc.
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Date Issued
2021-12-07
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Text
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Dissertation