Optical heating for short hot embossing cycle times

While hot embossing of polymers is very attractive for the production of a large number of samples, press techniques can have a longer cycle time for heating and cooling than is desirable. We have addressed this issue by prototyping a new hot embossing press based on optical heating that enables us to reduce the cycle time. In this system the mass to be heated and cooled is relatively small. Initial rapid cooling to around Tg occurs due to conduction to the cold top plate, but as the polymer solidifies further cooling occurs mainly by radiation. We have applied this new embossing tool to prepare biodegradable polymer replicas for biological assays.