A parameter study on the micro hot-embossing process of glassy polymer for pattern replication

As a promising processing method for glassy polymer, hot-embossing process has attracted more attention in the micro/nano manufacturing field. However, the relationship between process condition and final quality has not been thoroughly and systematically investigated. Since the replication quality of the process is sensitive to the control parameter, it is necessary to study on the optimal process condition. For the four main factors influencing on the final replication fidelity of the hot-embossing process, we carried out a series of experiments with different sets of parameters, in which micro pattern arrays were directly replicated from a glassy carbon (GC) mold to a commercially available glassy polymer substrate (polycarbonate, PC) with self-made micro hot-embossing system. sWe adopt Taguchi method to minimize the sets of experiments and made an analysis of the result using ANOM and ANOVA. As the result shows, the most significant factor is the embossing temperature and the optimal process parameters are the embossing temperature at 170 °C, heating time at 120 s, embossing force at 70 kgf and force holding time at 90 s. The experiment with these parameters shows a good result.