Direct Fabrication of Microcantilever Structures with High Shape Accuracy Using Projection-Based Stereolithography

Abstract

Microcantilever structures such as microgears play an important role in precision mechanisms, where highly accurate cantilever characteristics guarantee the reliable function of these structures. Projection-based stereolithography (PSL) technology is widely used to fabricate sophisticated microstructures owing to its high precision and remarkable efficiency, and plenty of works have been done to improve the precision of structures with macroscale. However, the shape accuracy of microcantilever structures fabricated through PSL process is always neglected, which severely hinders its application in precision mechanisms. In this work, we investigated the influence of major factors on the shape accuracy of microcantilever structures in PSL process through orthogonal tests. Different resin materials were tested to investigate the influence of material properties. Printing experiments showed that for a given PSL system, microcantilever structures with confined size could be directly and accurately manufactured using a set of optimized processing parameters, which dramatically speed up the production process and effectively improved the reliability of microcantilevers. This work provides a comprehensive understanding of the capability of PSL to fabricate microcantilever structures and guides the manufacturing processes of micromechanisms with cantilever features, which effectually promotes the industrial application of PSL technology.