Description

Hot Embossing is a replication technique used to produce polymeric copies starting from a moulding tool (a silicon master wafer, for instance), fabricated by means of standard micromachining processes.

In hot embossing, a microstructured master is firmly pressed into a thermoplastic substrate under vacuum conditions. The tool and the thermoplastic are heated separately to a temperature just above the glass transition temperature of the polymer (80°C to 170°C usually). The tool is then pressed into the thermoplastic for few minutes and removed after cooling, thus transferring the pattern in a reproducible and cost-effective way.

Technical specification

• Many thermoplastics can be used for hot embossing, such as PMMA, PC, PE, COC, COP, PS, PVDF, …
• High aspect ratios with lateral resolution down to 0.1 µm can be obtained
• Highly precise moulding of structures in polymers, especially microstructures with high aspect ratio (up to 150:1)