Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research

Title

Mass Production of 3-D Microstructures Using Projection Microstereolithography

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 3-2008

Abstract

Microstereolithography (MSL) technology is derived from the conventional stereolithography process and can meet the demands for fabricating complex 3-D microstructures with high resolution. This technology can be divided into scanning and projection methods, which have different levels of precision and fabrication speeds. Scanning MSL fabricates very fine 3-D microstructures by controlling the position of the laser spot on the resin surface. Projection MSL quickly fabricates one layer with one exposure using a mask. In this paper, we propose a projection MSL system with uniform illumination and image formation based on optical design for fabricating microstructure arrays. This system can realize mass production of 3-D microstructures in the meso-range, which falls between micro-and macro-ranges, with a resolution of a few microns. Microstructure arrays were fabricated to verify the performance of the proposed system.

Publication Title

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology

Volume

22

Issue

3

First Page

514

Last Page

521

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