Novel fabrication process for 3D meander-shaped microcoils in SU-8 dielectric and their application to linear micromotors

This paper reports on an optimized fabrication process for three dimensional coil structures such as meander or helical coils wound around in plane magnetic structures. The process consists of UV depth lithography employing AZ4562 and SU8 photo resists and electroplating of copper and nickel-iron. Furthermore SU8 is used as the embedding dielectric due to its excellent planarization properties and high structural aspect ratio. Special emphasis was laid on the decrease of via interconnect resistance by electroplating the vias and upper conductors in a single step thus avoiding a large number of resistive interfaces. This was achieved by sacrificial wiring and structured seed layers. The developed technology is applied to a variable reluctance micro motor with a novel design that avoids high friction. The presented concept makes use of a stator traveler configuration generating complementary attraction forces. The technology and design concept is presented and first results are demonstrated.