Abstract
Micro-stereolithography (μSL) is an advanced technology that enables fabrication of highly complex three-dimensional polymer microstructures out of UV curable resin. However, releasing of polymerized structures from un-polymerized resin is found to influence substantially the fabrication reliability of μSL, as the surface tension tends to push the fine structures together and cause collapse or adhesion. A theoretical model is developed to analyze the deflection and adhesion between thin polymer beams under capillary force. The detachment length of the test structures and solid surface tension of a typical μSL polymer (HDDA) are obtained experimentally. In this paper, we applied sublimation process to overcome the adhesion problem With the new drying process, no adhesion phenomenon was observed.
