Abstract
This study presents a novel scheme for manufacturing a large area molds with alignment microstructures electroplated from lateral joining of small area silicon plates. Conventional methods for manufacturing metal molds with nano or microstructures are extremely challenging. Semiconductor fabrication procedures that utilize photolithographic processes to generate nano-scale features easily limit wafer scale. However, a large area silicon mold with small features has been developed. However, its drawbacks were serious misalignment, tilting, and brittleness. This work presents a novel approach for fabricating a metal mold with precisely aligned microstructures. The gap, alignment precision, tilt, and height difference between the two joined plates joined laterally by passive alignment recombining techniques were all on a micro scale. Furthermore, the measurements of the metal molds and Polyvinylchloride (PVC) replicas were extremely similar. Moreover, the scalability of the technique was demonstrated using four small area silicon plates. Consequently, this approach has significant potential for bridging the technological gap between conventional precision machining and photolithography-based micromachining for metal molds exceeding typical wafer size with small features.