Hot Embossing: An Alternative Method to Produce Cavities in Ceramic Multilayer

New applications of ceramic multilayers, for example, in biotechnology, sensor technology, and chemical micro-reaction technique, call for cavities with complex geometries. Hot embossing offers a promising, cost-effective way to generate these structures on the surfaces of green tapes or laminates. Cavities inside low-temperature co-fired ceramic multilayer were manufactured by a combination of hot embossing, lamination by a special adhesive technique, and zero shrinkage sintering. The edge and surface quality in the green state as well as the sintered multilayers with surface structures and cavities were extensively characterized by laser surface scanning, optical and ultrasound microscopy. Sintering shrinkage of hot-embossed laminates could be reduced in the x and y directions to less than 0.5%.