Suppression of thermal crown of heating roll for large area thermal imprint with consideration of thermal resistance between roll and shaft

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Printed electronic circuits are becoming increasingly employed in flexible electronics such as radiofrequency (RF) antenna modules and organic solar cells. To achieve a high-efficiency module, very thin and small electrodes need to be produced with high throughput. This work reports on a heating roll design for the roll-to-roll (R2R) thermal imprinting process. Due to non-uniform thermal deformation of the roll, it is difficult to produce uniform electrodes throughout the large surface. This investigation focused on a thermo-mechanical design for the heating roll that improves the uniformity of its temperature and thermal deformation. This paper presents the design procedure and fabrication process of the R2R thermal imprinting. Applying this method for optimizing the heating roll will contribute to large area imprinting and high uniformity.