Microfabrication on polymer with a contact procedure

In the fabrication of a microstructure, it is usually difficult to make deep etching with the conventional photolithography. Here the fabrication of thickness contrast micropatterns based on a contact procedure is demonstrated. Polymer (polydimethylsiloxane) microposts arrays have been fabricated with grids as the masters. The contact procedure, which does not need the etching procedure, extends the present limit of microfabrication. Moreover, the thickness contrast micropatterns on the polymer can be replicated to other substrates (such as silicon wafer) with the microcontact printing.