Abstract
Direct LIGA; LIGA without injection molding; has the potential to become a cost effective, high throughput form of LIGA. The process requires high energy photons; near 20,000 eV; which are best produced in facilities such as the X-ray ring at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The increased absorption lengths over lower energy photons eliminates the need for a membrane type X-ray mask. This in turn facilitates very large area X-ray masks fabricated from standard silicon wafers with 20 μm gold absorbers. The absorption length increase in PMMA to 2 cm is used to implement stacked PMMA exposures in which 1 mm thick PMMA layers are used to produce exposed PMMA sheets. These sheets are eventually solvent bonded to working substrates with plating bases.
New high energy X-ray masks have been developed. Two exposure stations at Brookhaven are operational. The recently commissioned manufacturing exposure station which uses a 22 inch scanner which can expose four separate PMMA-mask combination is in the testing phase.
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Received: 7 July 1999/Accepted: 30 July 1999
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Guckel, H., Fischer, K., Stiers, E. et al. Direct, high throughput LIGA for commercial applications: a progress report. Microsystem Technologies 6, 103–105 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s005420050007
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s005420050007