Injection-rolling nozzle in an imprint system with continuous injection direct rolling for ultra-thin microstructure guide light plate

Yan Lou,Yanfeng Feng,Kewei Chen,Xiangwei Zhou

doi:10.1177/16878140211011274

Abstract

A novel Injection-rolling Nozzle (IRN) in an imprint system with continuous injection direct rolling (CIDR) for ultra-thin microstructure polymer guide light plates was developed to achieve uniform flow velocity and temperature at the width direction of the cavity exit. A novel IRN cavity was designed. There are eight of feature parameters of cavity were optimized by orthogonal experiments and numerical simulation. Results show that the flow velocity at the width direction of the IRN outlet can reach uniformity, which is far better than that of traditional cavity. The smallest flow velocity difference and temperature difference was 0.6 mm/s and 0.24 K, respectively. The superior performance of the IRN was verified through a CIDR experiment. Several 0.35-mm thick, 340-mm wide, and 10-m long microstructural Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA) guide light plates were manufactured. The average filling rates of the microgrooves with the aspect ratio 1:3 reached above 93%. The average light transmittance is 88%.

Highlights

The critical requirement for achieving high-throughput production of micro-components is the design of viable manufacturing platforms with cost-effective fabrication
Several 0.35-mm thick, 340-mm wide, and over 10-m long Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA) guide light plates with microstructure were replicated under the optimal structure of the Injection-rolling nozzle (IRN) by continuous injection direct rolling (CIDR)
(1) A novel flow cavity structure of the IRN was designed, and the IRN finite element model was built in the flow field to analyze the effect of IRN feather parameters on f (v) value

Summary

Introduction

The critical requirement for achieving high-throughput production of micro-components is the design of viable manufacturing platforms with cost-effective fabrication. Keywords Injection-rolling nozzle (IRN), cavity, flow velocity, imprint system with continuous injection direct rolling, microstructural polymer guide light plates The flow cavity structure needs to maintain the uniformity of velocity at the width direction of the nozzle exit to satisfy the CIDR process requirement.

Results

Conclusion