Fabrication of Three-Dimensional Transparent SiO₂ Microstructures by Microstereolithographic Molding

Abstract

A three-dimensional (3D) molding process based on microstereolithography and floc casting was proposed and developed to fabricate 3D ceramic microstructures. In this method, a 3D polymeric mold fabricated by microstereolithography is covered with ceramic slurry and then thermally decomposed to obtain real 3D ceramic microstructures. In this study, a highly concentrated slurry (60.9 vol %) containing submicron fused SiO2 particles was used to fabricate transparent SiO2 glass microstructures. Thermal decomposition of a photopolymer was examined by thermogravimetry and differential thermal analysis (TG–DTA). The temperature profile of the heating process is optimized using the master decomposition curve (MDC) theory to reduce the number of harmful cracks during thermal decomposition. It was demonstrated that a transparent fullerene-like model could be fabricated by the optimized thermal decomposition.