Fabrication of affordable metallic microstructures by electroplating and photoresist molds

Abstract

Electroforming processes such as electroplating was used in conjunction with photoresist mold to fabricate surface and substrate micromachined structure. Gold, gold alloys and nickel and nickel-iron alloys were used as structural material in this technique. In case of surface micromachining free standing, cantilevers, bridges and linear and torsional comb drives on silicon substrate were fabricated, whereas in case of substrate micromachined magnetic actuators were fabricated using the above mentioned technology. The thickness of metallic microstructures varied from 8 /spl mu/m to 20 /spl mu/m. This presentation discusses the technology we have developed in our laboratory to fabricate affordable metallic microstructures, as well as presenting functional devices we have built to demonstrate the potential of this technology.