Hi All,
I am currently working on fabricating microfluidic channels on
coverglass using SU8-2025 and using the following protocol:
1. Spin SU8 2025 on No. 1 coverglass.
500 rpm -> 2000 rpm. Coverglass was blown with nitrogen before
spin coating.
2. Pre-bake.
65 degree C for 1 min and 95 degree C for 3 min.
3. Exposure.
1 min @ 4.5 mW/cm^2
4. Post Bake
65 degree C for 1 min and 95 degree C for 3 min.
5. Development
SU8 developer. No IPA rinsing.
At first, the feature came out nicely, but recently, the success
rate dropped aggressively. I could see bright edges along the channels
and sometimes it is really difficult to develop out the un-crosslinked
polymer in the un-exposed area. It seems that the resist film in
unexposed area is shattered into small pieces.
If you could kindly have a look at the following image
(http://base.google.com/base/items?oid=10375407859124322045), you may
find the Y shape channel (width 200 micron) surrounded by some
colorful bright edges. I suspect this bright edge is due to the
peel-off of SU8 from coverglass, but cannot figure out why it happens.
What puzzles me most is that by the same procedure, I can obtain
perfect channel if lucky enough. Unfortunately, I don't know what
"luck" means here. So the result changes from trial to trial without
an obvious consistent pattern. For example, I tried 10 samples today.
The first two were perfect. But the following were worse and worse.
For the last one, it takes barely 10 second to develop such edges
after I started development, but the unexposed resist wasn't desolved
even after 1 min.
I tried different combination of process configuration before and
it seems that the above protocol is the best for me. But, as the
result is not reproducible, I doubt ...
I would appreciate it very much if any of you could offer me some
hint on this issue and thanks for reading this message.
Best,
Liu Yu