Micro-scale Rapid Prototyping Melissa Appel Eric Dávila Andrew Maclennan
Overview Background Purpose Prior Work Experimental Setup Improvements Needed What We’ve Done Future Work
But First… What’s the difference between a Moose and an Ant?
Give Up? A Moose has Antlers, but an Ant doesn’t have Mooselers!
We apologize for the preceding slides. Those responsible have been sacked.
And Now On With the Show…
Background Butterflies Butterflies’ wings have millions of scales, each of which has hundreds of structures on its upper surface. ridges crossrib lamellae lower lamina upper lamina ~0.5 m scale cross section
Purpose To Discover More about Butterfly Wings How they Trap Heat How they Display Colors thin film air substrate incident radiationreflected radiation transmitted radiation
Prior Work Microscope Setup CCD or photodiode Field limiting aperture Eyepiece Objectives Sample holder stage Focus wheel Iris & field diaphragm Illumination for reflection Illumination for transmission Photometry view port
Modeling these Structures Single Layer Structure Spin out a Thin Layer of SU-8 on a Glass Slide Cure a Pattern in the SU-8 Using UV Light Develop the Slide to Wash Away Unexposed SU-8
Experimental Setup
Improvements Needed Stage Movement Spin Coater Optimize Thin Film Parameters Pre-baking Resist Application Curing Speeds for Better Resolution Substrate: Glass or Silicon Developing Process Multilayer Structures X Y -Into/out of page Plate Stepper motor Linear ball bearing slides Micro-positioning stages L brackets Z 7.5” h = ” Cutout Clamps Simple support Existing Stage
What We’ve Done New Spin Coater Optimized Thin Film Parameters Built Multi-Layered Structures (we think) “Huffed” Catalogued Our Work
New Spin Coater Slide Lies Flat Air Circulation Minimized Slide Removal Easier
Optimized Thin Film Parameters Amount of Resist Placed on Slide Pre-exposure Baking Air Bubbles Minimized Curing Speeds for Better Resolution 1 & 5 Micron Films Tried Silicon Wafers Washed Developer with Isopropyl Alcohol or Acetone
Built Multi-Layered Structures (we think) The Great Pyramids:
…And Now, For Something Completely Different…
Our Plan For World Domination
Our Plan For Multilayer Construction
Spin Thick Layer of SU-8
Cure a Tall Column
Develop Negative Resist
Spin Alternating Layers of SU-8 and FSC
Cure All Layers
Develop All Cured Resists Uncured SU-8 and all FSC will be developed away.
Catalogued Our Work Edited Existing LabVIEW VI’s Using LabVIEW Snapped Pictures Measured Line Thicknesses
Some Pictures
Slide: 1Box: Bfilm thickness: 1 m speed: X: 15, Y: 20Objective: 50x Line thickness:20 m X Y
More Pictures
Future Work Improve the Stage Thinner Lines Multilayer Structures with Overhang Take Pictures of Slides at an Angle
The “Working Hard” Slide