Thermal bubble formation is a fundamental process in nucleate boiling heat transfer and many microelectromechanical thermal systems. One of the established facts is that heterogeneous nucleation is originated from vapors trapped inside cavities. Based on this, we performed an experimental study on the formation of thermal bubbles from microcavity fabricated by microfabrication technology on a copper plate. The cavity was filled with aluminum particles to enhance thermal bubble formation. We observed the thermal bubble behaviors, such as bubble incipience, diameter, frequency and coalescence during nucleate boiling. The experimental data showed that the superheat required to trigger the bubble formation was significantly reduced when the cavity was filled with microparticles. We found that the initial increase of superheat led to the increase of both the departure diameter and frequency while the further increase of superheat caused multiple bubbles to coalesce resulting in the decrease of departure frequency.