Microfabricated hollow microneedle array using ICP etcher

Abstract

This paper presents a developed process for fabrication of hollow silicon microneedle arrays. The inner hollow hole and the fluidic reservoir are fabricated in deep reactive ion etching. The profile of outside needles is achieved by the developed fabrication process, which combined isotropic etching and anisotropic etching with inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etcher. Using the combination of SF6/O2 isotropic etching chemistry and Bosch process, the high aspect ratio 3D and high density microneedle arrays are fabricated. The generated needle external geometry can be controlled by etching variables in the isotropic and anisotropic cases. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd.