Modeling and measurement of curing properties of photocurable polymer containing magnetic particles and microcapsules

In microstereolithography, three-dimensional microstructures are created by scanning an ultraviolet laser on a photocurable resin and stacking several such layers to form the desired structure. By mixing different types of particles in the resin, the formed microstructures exhibit various physical properties. For example, the magnetism and density of the microstructure can be controlled by adding magnetic particles and microcapsules to the resin. This method has been used to fabricate magnetic micromachines. Although such functional resins are useful, the incorporated magnetic particles and microcapsules can affect the fabrication resolution, making it difficult to fabricate microstructures with high precision. Thus, it is necessary to understand the effects of such microparticles and microcapsules on the fabrication process. In this study, we propose a simple model of curing resins containing magnetic particles and microcapsules to explain the effects of the magnetic particles and microcapsules. The proposed model can explain the observed curing characteristics of a resin that contains particles for all concentrations as well as for different types of magnetic particles and microcapsules. Finally, using the proposed model, we discuss how to improve the characteristics of resins containing microparticles to realize the high-resolution fabrication of three-dimensional microstructures with desirable material properties.