Development of cylindrical reactive ion etching technology for fabricating tubular microstructures

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a novel technology that can form a dense and complex pattern on a polymer tube without thermal damage. We have developed an etching mask and equipment capable of processing the tubular material. We named this technology cylindrical RIE (reactive ion etching). In order to evaluate the fundamental processing characteristics of this technology, etching rate, side etching ratio and etching uniformities along the tube axis and circumferential directions are evaluated. As a result, a vertical wall caused by anisotropic etching could be observed, and the average etching rate was 1.0 µm min−1 and the average side etching ratio was 0.027. The maximum differences between etching rate along the axis and circumferential directions were 0.25 and 0.12 µm min−1, respectively. The cross-section of the etched through-groove (slit) processed in a PP (polypropylene) tube having wall thickness of 200 µm was evaluated. By the bowing phenomenon, pattern width decreased most at the middle of the thickness of the tube wall, and average width errors at the middle of the thickness was 22.4 µm. To demonstrate the usefulness of the cylindrical RIE, a stent made of PP tube was fabricated. It was possible to fabricate a stent with an outer diameter of 4.4 mm, length of 19 mm, main strut width of 300 µm, and connecting strut width of 80 µm.

Fibre-based stretchable electrodes for flexible metamaterial electronics: A review

“…Therefore, in addition to studying the angle of the fibres, the strain transfer in the vertical direction of the fibre substrate will be the focus of future research. Besides the near-field electrostatic spinning process mentioned in the text, photolithographic processes (Singh et al, 2012), reactive ion etching (Matsui et al, 2014), lasers (Lei et al, 2020), or inverted films (Long and Wang, 2021) can also be used to achieve the preparation of fibres on thin films. These well-established methods provide strong support for the processing of fibre structures on thin films and offer a predictable future for commercialization.…”

Fabrication of Stent-Like Mesh Structures Using Synchronized Scan Rotation Lithography and Wet Etching

“…2, and the size was 600×450×935 mm 3 . Concerning exposure systems for printing or delineating patterns on a cylindrical specimen, various research results have been reported [14][15][16][17][18]. The authors have developed some systems also except the above mentioned ones [19][20][21][22].…”

Laser-Scan Lithography and Electrolytic Etching for Fabricating Meshed Pipes of Stainless Steel

“…For this reason, various methods for fabricating 3D cylindrical shapes are proposed. For example, a wire stent fabrication technique [3], pipe forming processes using hot indirect extrusion and multi-pass cold drawing of a magnesium alloy [4], CNC (Computer Numerical Control) manufacturing method [6], a micro-needle fabrication method by electroplating nickel on a resist mold [7], a biotemplating process [16], and cylindrical reactive ion etching with flexible stencil masks [17] are reported.…”