Nickel shims / nickel molds
Nickel shims are made for nanoimprint lithography and replication and we have long experience with production of them (often called nickel shims or nickel sleeves).
We happen to be experts in custom specified structures.
Nickel shims and how we can help
Nickel shims are always made from an existing pattern, which typically is a silicon
or fused silica master. From the master, we can create a corresponding nickel mold with the same polarity or the opposite polarity of the master. Since we make the nickel molds based on a silicon or fused silica master, we can offer nickel molds with the same structures as we can offer on silicon or fused silica.
Examples are:
- Large area binary diffraction gratings
- Multilevel structures with 4 or more levels
- Blazed gratings (saw-tooth gratings)
- Slanted gratings
- Microlens arrays
Use of nickel molds/shims
Nickel molds/nickel shims can be used for a wide range of replication processes. For example:
- Parallel plate replication
- Roll-to-plate replication
- Roll-to-roll replication
- Injection molding
One of the advantages of nickel molds is that it can be bent and shaped, unlike silicon or fused silica. This allows nickel molds/shims to be fixed onto rollers for high-throughput processes.
Typical applications are microfluidic devices, surface functionalization and engineering, microlens arrays, diffusers, diffraction grating etc.
Specifications for our nickel shims:
i | |
|---|---|
Material | Nickel |
Size (wafer) | NiV or CrAu |
Sizes (cut) | Up to 140 mm diameter round or any other format that fits within 240 mm diameter round |
Thickness | 50 um to 1 mm |
Minimum lateral dimensions | 100 nm |
Aspect ratio | Up to 1:3 (pattern dependent) |
Design | Customer specified |
Design file format | gds, dxf, tdb |
Anti-sticking | FDTS with AI205 adhesion promotor (optional) |