Review on ultrasonic fabrication of polymer micro devices

Fabrication of micro devices from thermoplastic polymers by ultrasonic processing has become a promising new technology in recent years. Microstructures are generated on polymer surfaces with cycle times of a few seconds and are tightly sealed in even shorter times. Investment costs and energy consumption are comparatively low and processes are very flexible enabling economic fabrication even for small-scale production. For large-scale production role-to-role fabrication has been shown reducing costs even more. A variety of micro devices have been introduced up to now mostly for microfluidic applications. Besides this, electronic circuit boards are fabricated by ultrasonic processing. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.