Nonuniform heating method for hot embossing of polymers with multiscale microstructures

Abstract

The hot embossing of polymers is one of the most popular methods for replicating high-precision structures on thermoplastic polymer substrates at the micro-/nanoscale. However, the fabrication of hybrid multiscale microstructures by using the traditional isothermal hot embossing process is challenging. Therefore, in this study, we propose a novel nonuniform heating method for the hot embossing of polymers with multiscale microstructures. In this method, a thin graphene-based heater with a nonuniform heating function, a facility that integrates the graphene-based heater and gas-assisted hot embossing, and a roll of thermoplastic film are employed. Under appropriate process conditions, multiscale polymer microstructure patterns are fabricated through a single-step hot embossing process. The quality of the multiscale microstructure patterns replicated is uniform and high. The technique has great potential for the rapid and flexible fabrication of multiscale microstructure patterns on polymer substrates.