Microfabrication of super absorbent polymer structure using nanoimprinting and swelling process

Micro-fabrication technologies have been extensively studied to achieve smaller sizes and higher aspect ratios. When the features have sizes of a couple of micrometers or below, nano-imprinting can be an effective method for micro-fabrication at low cost. However, it is difficult to achieve aspect ratio greater than 1. In this research, we propose micro fabrication of super absorbent polymer (SAP) as a new material for micro devices. SAP swells by adding deionized water, which can be used as a post patterning process to enhance the aspect ratio of micro structures. Micropatterning of SAP must be conducted under thoroughly dry conditions and we used nano-imprinting processes. We successfully augmented an aspect ratio of the nano-imprinted micro holes of SAP from 0.65 to 1.2 by the swelling process. The proposed patterning and swelling process of SAP can be applicable to micro-fabricate high-aspect-ratio structures at low cost for high performance lab-on-a-chip.