Electroplating using high-aspect-ratio microstructures fabricated by proton beam writing

Proton beam writing (PBW) is one of the direct write techniques for the purpose of deep micromachining. Together with the flexibility of the direct write feature, micromachining of high-aspect-ratio structures is possible due to the straight trajectory of the MeV energy protons. However, direct writing is a low throughput process, when compared with a mask process such as UV lithography. For better productivity, coupled use of PBW with electroplating has been proposed as a method to fabricate metal microstructures for molds of imprint lithography. We demonstrate the electroplating of high-aspect-ratio Ni microstructures on PMMA micromachined by PBW.