Centre for High-Throughput Biology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Lab Chip. 2011 Dec 7;11(23):4122-5. doi: 10.1039/c1lc20623k. Epub 2011 Oct 13.
This paper presents an improvement to the soft lithography fabrication process that uses chemical vapor deposition of poly(chloro-p-xylylene) (parylene C) to protect microfabricated masters and to improve the release of polymer devices following replica molding. Chemical vapor deposition creates nanometre thick conformal coatings of parylene C on silicon wafers having arrays of 30 μm high SU8 pillars with densities ranging from 278 to 10,040 features per mm(2) and aspect ratios (height : width) from 1 : 1 to 6 : 1. A single coating of parylene C was sufficient to permanently promote poly(dimethyl)siloxane (PDMS) mold release and to protect masters for an indefinite number of molding cycles. We also show that the improved release properties of parylene treated masters allow for fabrication with hard polymers, such as poly(urethane), that would otherwise not be compatible with SU8 on silicon masters. Parylene C provides a robust and high performance mold release coating for soft lithography microfabrication that extends the life of microfabricated masters and improves the achievable density and aspect ratio of replicated features.
本文提出了一种改进的软光刻制造工艺，该工艺使用聚（氯对二甲苯）（对二甲苯 C）的化学气相沉积来保护微制造的母版，并在复制成型后改善聚合物器件的脱模性能。化学气相沉积在具有 30μm 高 SU8 柱阵列的硅片上生成纳米级厚的对二甲苯 C 保形涂层，其密度范围从 278 到 10040 个特征/平方毫米，纵横比（高度：宽度）从 1：1 到 6：1。一层对二甲苯 C 涂层足以永久促进聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）模具脱模，并保护母版进行无限次数的成型循环。我们还表明，经过处理的对二甲苯 C 母版具有更好的脱模性能，允许使用硬聚合物（如聚氨酯）进行制造，否则这些硬聚合物与硅母版上的 SU8 不兼容。对二甲苯 C 为软光刻微制造提供了一种稳健且高性能的脱模涂层，延长了微制造母版的使用寿命，并提高了可复制特征的密度和纵横比。
