I am looking for a protocol of making PDMS that is optimal for bonding it to PDMS or glass after RIE in my oxygen plasma chamber.
I'm aware of the "in-box" curing protocol.
I don't think the curing protocol makes any difference. PDMS should bond to glass or PDMS easily. Just heat your PDMS and wait, that will cure it and you will be able to bond it.
The "in-box" curing protocol is fine, but try not to cure it at too high of a temperature or for too long. High temperatures and long cure times seem to make the PDMS stiffer, which reduces the quality of the contact with the glass substrate. There is an abstract available online from microTAS 2003 by Eddington, Crone, and Beebe that shows the Young's modulus increasing from 0.9 to 1.2 MPa when the PDMS was cured at 70 versus 85 degrees C. Similarly they showed that longer cure times at 100 degrees C led to stiffer material.
As Micheal states, over curing the PDMS will definitely make it far more difficult to achieve a quality bond. I have found that the PDMS is quite sensitive to the curing temperature and have found 80 degrees C seems to work well for most of my moulds.
according to my experiments and saw in different person's protocol
60-80°C for 2-4 hour is the best PDMS curing condition
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