Hybrid microassembly combining laser die transfer and capillary self-alignment

Laser die transfer technique provides an efficient solution for fast transportation of microchips in microassembly. Capillary self-alignment is able to achieve parallel and high-accuracy alignment of microchips on receptor sites. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid microassembly strategy, which combines laser die transfer and capillary self-alignment techniques. The laser die transfer technique was used for the coarse positioning of microchips and the capillary self-assembly technique was applied to achieve high-accuracy alignment. A low-power and low-cost laser device was investigated in laser die transfer process and hydrophilic/superhydrophobic patterned surfaces were fabricated and served as receptor sites. Microscopic droplets were introduced as the media for capillary self-alignment. The results show that the microchip can be selectively released and self-aligned with the corresponding receptor site. The proposed method could be useful for high-throughput, high-accuracy and fully-automatic assembly in construction of miniature devices.