Abstract
Electroplated Ni and Ni-W micro-molds using LIGA-like process for replication of micro-components such as microfluidic parts and micro optical parts have been investigated. In general, it is hard to produce micro-parts using conventional mechanical processes. Micro-mold formed by LIGA-like process could fabricate micro-parts with high aspect ratio. In this paper, fabrication and properties of electroplated Ni molds with varying applied current types as well as those of Ni-W molds were investigated. Ni molds fabricated under pulse-reverse current showed the highest hardness value of about 160 Hv. Ni-W molds showed the hardness of about 500 Hv which was much harder than that of Ni electroplated molds. The above results suggested that high quality micro-molds could be fabricated by using Ni electroplating of pulse-reverse type for core molds and sequential Ni-W alloys coating.