Fabrication of micro-parts by high aspect ratio structuring and metal injection molding using the supercritical debinding method

High aspect ratio micro-fabrication method using metal injection molding (MIM) is developed. In the MIM process, the powder is mixed with the binder and the mixture is injection molded. The binder is extracted from the molded parts using supercritical carbon dioxide, and the parts are sintered. Employing this process, micro-pattern which has aspect ratio more than 5 can be molded by stainless-steel powder. In this method, a micro-pattern made by laser ablation is used as a die. As compared with other micro-fabrication techniques, this method can utilize the molding die repeatedly. Consequently, the cost of production micro-parts can be decreased by this method in the actual production process.