Surface micromachining of unfired ceramic sheets
Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley Previously Published Works bannerUC Berkeley

Surface micromachining of unfired ceramic sheets

Abstract

Conventional surface micromachining techniques including photolithography and both wet and dry etching have been directly applied to an unfired sheet of yttria-stabilized zirconia ceramic material. Reversible bonding methods were investigated for affixing unfired ceramic samples to silicon handle wafers in order to perform photolithography. Three types of photoresist were investigated. Thin film photoresist allowed a line-width feature size of 8 μm to be obtained. Thick film photoresist exhibited a coverage gradient after being spun on. Chemical etching was successfully performed isotropically with concentrated hydrofluoric acid. A dry thick film resist applied by lamination provided coverage during plasma etching. Neither an oxygen plasma nor a mixture of sulfur hexafluoride and oxygen plasma proved successful at etching the unfired ceramic. Embossing was performed on the meso-scale with feature shrinkage of approximately 45% after sintering.

Many UC-authored scholarly publications are freely available on this site because of the UC's open access policies. Let us know how this access is important for you.

Main Content
For improved accessibility of PDF content, download the file to your device.
Current View