Study on fabrication of high aspect ratio MEMS microparts using a compact SR beamline

A compact beamline dedicated to hard x-ray deep lithography for fabrication of high aspect ratio MEMS microparts has been developed. The exposure stage was only 3 meters away from the synchrotron radiation (SR) source so that a relatively high photon flux could be achieved with a compact super-conducting SR source. The deep lithography using PMMA resist could be as deep as 1000 mu m and the maximum aspect ratio achieved was about 50. The throughout for the 200 mu m-deep lithography was found to be on the order of 5 cm(2)/h using the membrane-free mask under the routine SR conditions. Templates with the high aspect ratio microstructures have been made of the PMMA resist based on conducting substrates and applied further to electroforming to create metallic microstructures. In order to fabricate microparts for the MEMS applications, we have concentrated on development of masks for the hard x-ray deep lithography. The masks now can be made to have the 8 mu m-thick gold absorber on the 2 mu m-thick SiC membrane.