Flexure-based Roll-to-roll Platform: A Practical Solution for Realizing Large-area Microcontact Printing.

Xi Zhou,Ni Zhao,Shih-Chi Chen,Huihua Xu,Jiyi Cheng

doi:10.1038/srep10402

Abstract

A continuous roll-to-roll microcontact printing (MCP) platform promises large-area nanoscale patterning with significantly improved throughput and a great variety of applications, e.g. precision patterning of metals, bio-molecules, colloidal nanocrystals, etc. Compared with nanoimprint lithography, MCP does not require a thermal imprinting step (which limits the speed and material choices), but instead, extreme precision with multi-axis positioning and misalignment correction capabilities for large area adaptation. In this work, we exploit a flexure-based mechanism that enables continuous MCP with 500 nm precision and 0.05 N force control. The fully automated roll-to-roll platform is coupled with a new backfilling MCP chemistry optimized for high-speed patterning of gold and silver. Gratings of 300, 400, 600 nm line-width at various locations on a 4-inch plastic substrate are fabricated at a speed of 60 cm/min. Our work represents the first example of roll-to-roll MCP with high reproducibility, wafer scale production capability at nanometer resolution. The precision roll-to-roll platform can be readily applied to other material systems.

Highlights

Roll-to-roll (R2R) printing technology has been the driving force for the development of many flexible electronic and photonic devices
We developed a flexure-based R2R system that achieved nanometer level repeatability and precision in all six axes and realized high-resolution and high throughput printing by adapting microcontact printing (MCP) to the R2R platform
High-throughput, large area continuous roll-to-roll printing at 100 s nanometer resolution is realized through adapting a positive MCP protocol with new inking and etching chemistry to the R2R platform

Summary

Introduction

Roll-to-roll (R2R) printing technology has been the driving force for the development of many flexible electronic and photonic devices. A frequently held misconception about the R2R process is that it produces devices of lower resolution and quality This is not necessarily true if contact printing techniques such as microcontact printing (MCP)[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] or nanoimprint[10,11,12,13] are implemented to properly designed R2R platforms. There are a number of reasons why it is not practical to resort to direct scale-up and apply these techniques to the present state-of-the-art R2R systems, e.g. gravure printing and flexographic printing, which have approximately 20 micron print resolution These systems are designed with conventional mechanical components and bearings; lack the required nanometer level repeatability and accuracy. Gold and silver electrodes and optical gratings are fabricated to demonstrate the scalability and resolution of the new R2R MCP process

Methods

Results

Conclusion