A micro roller embossing process for structuring large-area substrates of laminated ceramic green tapes

This paper presents a micro roller embossing process for patterning large-area substrates of laminated green ceramic tapes. The aim of this research is to develop a large-area microstructure formation technique for green ceramic substrates using a thermal roller laminator, which is compatible with screen printing apparatus. A thin film nickel mold was developed via photolithographic patterning and nickel electroplating on a 75-mu m-thick nickel film. The mold had an effective panel size of 150 mm x 150 mm with the height of plated protrusive patterns being about 38 mu m. Formation of micro patterns was successfully demonstrated over the whole panel area on laminated green ceramic tapes using roller embossing. Micro patterns for inductors, heaters as well as interconnection with 50 mu m line-width were embossed on green ceramic substrates. By means of tuning process parameters including roller temperature, applied pressure and feeding speed, we have demonstrated that micro roller embossing is a promising method for patterning large-area green ceramic substrates.