Determining local residual strains of polydimethylsiloxane using ink dots, and stiffening polydimethylsiloxane using SU-8 particles

We have developed two methods to characterize and reduce the deformation of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) during its planar molding process. The first method was to determine the local residual strain of PDMS using ink dots. The information of the local residual strain was used to optimize the processing. The second method was to increase the stiffness of PDMS using SU-8 particles. The two methods were applied to a PDMS planar process. With the aid of the methods, the maximum local strain in the released PDMS has been reduced to meet the requirement of misalignment tolerance.