durusmail: mems-talk: Gold on SU-8
Gold on SU-8
Wet etch chemistry for evaporated titanium
2007-02-27
Wet etching Gold
Gold on SU-8
Kevin Paul Nichols
2007-02-26
If what you really need is an adhesion layer for SU-8 and Au without
resorting to Ti or Cr, you should look at "Investigation of the bond
strength between the photo-sensitive polymer SU-8 and gold" where
Nordström et al report using 4-aminothiolphenol (4-ATP) as a good
adhesion layer for SU-8/Au. In short, the amine on 4-ATP reacts with
the SU-8's epoxy, and the thiol bonds to the Au.

They also list a few other iterations that they had luck with. It's a
good, comprehensive paper on the subject.

The link is here:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V0W-
4F5S6C5-7/2/e59903c5e0903d82c14a43c5cbb36c38

Regarding your process overall though:

1) With the Cr/Ti adhesion layers, you only need 10 - 20 nm for good
adhesion. This should take about 5 minutes (at most) on most
equipment (evaporation or sputtering). I don't think this should
really be a problem.

2) Regarding omnicoat, don't use this if you want to make a
"sandwich." Unless your Au layer is unpatterned, it will give you
issues when you try to adhere SU-8 to SU-8.

3) Au adhesion on SU-8 isn't great, but if you're careful you can
still pattern it (just be sure to build in a margin for
undercutting). And, if you have it in a "sandwich," it should be
secure enough in most cases. I honestly doubt you'll need an adhesion
layer at all.

- Kevin Nichols

*********************************
Kevin Paul Nichols
Mesoscale Chemical Systems
MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology
University of Twente
Postbus 217
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands

Office: +31 (0)53 489 30 71
Mobile: +31 (0)6 49 312 471
Fax   : +31 (0)53 489 35 95
Email : k.p.nichols@utwente.nl


On Feb 26, 2007, at 3:39 AM, Yue Mun Pun, Jeffrey wrote:

> Hi,
> In building my MEMS device, I need to create a sandwich layer of SU8
> (2050)-Gold-SU8(2050).  The Gold layer functions as a conductor.  I
> have been trying to thermally evaporate either Chromium and/or
> Titanium to create an adhesion layer for Gold on SU-8, but the
> evaporation rates are low.
> Does anybody know if Gold adheres well to SU-8 2050 so I can do
> without an adhesion layer?  Alternatively, I am considering
> switching to using Omnicoat as an adhesion layer for Gold on SU-8
> 2050 instead.
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