Induction heating ferromagnetic particles embedded PDMS mold for microstructure embossing

Abstract

Abstract Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is an excellent soft mold material with the advantages of precise replication, easy demolding, and low production cost. However, the strength and hardness of PDMS are relatively low, and PDMS cannot be directly inductively heated. In this study, PDMS is embedded with ferromagnetic powders to increase its hardness and make it heatable. Direct induction heating of the PDMS mold can raise its inherent temperature, increase the heating efficiency by 100% compared with pure PDMS, and improve the shortcomings of uneven surface temperature distribution from high thermal resistance. Furthermore, adding the ferromagnetic metal powder to PDMS can improve its conductivity and make the mold a high-low surface temperature gap as low as 1.6 °C. Adding nickel powder to the PDMS mold makes the hardness 2.29 times higher than that of pure PDMS and can withstand a pressure of 7 kg cm−2, which is very conducive to hot embossing. This study used a self-designed five-sided cladding iron block base and a PDMS mold with ferromagnetic metal powder for hot embossing. This heating apparatus can quickly raise the PDMS surface temperature and emboss deep V-groove microstructures on the polycarbonate (PC) film; the replication performance can reach more than 97%.