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Flexible electronics technology can potentially result in many compelling applications not satisfied by the rigid Si-based conventional electronics. Commercially available foils such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) have emerged as the most suitable polymer materials for wide range of flexible electronics applications. Despite the enormous progress which has been recently done on the optimization of physical and mechanical properties of PET and PEN foils, their dimensional stability at the micro-scale is still an issue during patterning of wiring by means of lithography. Consequently, the measurement of in-plane micro-deformation of foil is of great importance for understanding and predicting its thermal, hydroscopic and mechanical behaviour during processing.

Opto-mechanical instruments are sensitive to temperature effects. The optical performance will be influenced by temperature variations within an instrument. Temperature variations can occur due to environmental or internal heat sources. Assembly at a different temperature than eventual operation of the instrument can also influence the performance. This paper describes principles to minimize thermal disturbance of optical performance. The thermal behaviour of a system can area-wise be divided in heat source, heat transfer area and place where the optical performance is affected. Placement of the heat source is critical. Using a large thermal capacity, the influence of the source will be minimized. Heat transfer can be controlled by insulation or by good conduction, the latter minimizing the thermal gradient along the thermal path. Thermo mechanical effects on the optical performance can be controlled using a thermal centre, a combination of materials with different expansion properties, low thermal expansion materials and scaling effects of the optical design. TNO TPD designs and manufactures opto-mechanical instruments for space and astronomy. The design guidelines described are commonly used in these instruments. Several examples of the application of these design guidelines are presented in this paper.

We propose a design to fabricate transistors on flexible substrates in a bottom-up fashion using R2R UVimprint lithography. The design consists of a template composed of multilevel as well as gray level features, the later used to facilitate device interconnection. A hard mold is fabricated by LBR and a flexible Ni replica is done using Ni electroplating. The flexible stamp is used in the R2R UV imprint machine with PET as flexible substrate. Imprints were performed at a speed of 0.35m/min and show a high level of replication of the multilevel as well as gray level features.