Large-area, continuous roll-to-roll nanoimprinting with PFPE composite molds

Abstract

Successful implementation of a high-speed roll-to-roll nanoimprinting technique for continuous manufacturing of electronic devices has been hindered due to lack of simple substrate preparation steps, as well as lack of durable and long lasting molds that can faithfully replicate nanofeatures with high fidelity over hundreds of imprinting cycles. In this work, we demonstrate large-area high-speed continuous roll-to-roll nanoimprinting of 1D and 2D micron to sub-100 nm features on flexible substrate using perfluoropolyether (PFPE) composite molds on a custom designed roll-to-roll nanoimprinter. The efficiency and reliability of the PFPE based mold for the dynamic roll-to-roll patterning process was investigated. The PFPE composite mold replicated nanofeatures with high fidelity and maintained superb mold performance in terms of dimensional integrity of the nanofeatures, nearly defect free pattern transfer and exceptional mold recovering capability throughout hundreds of imprinting cycles.

Suspended Multiwall Carbon Nanotube‐Based Infrared Sensors via Roll‐to‐Roll Fabrication

“…[ 27 ] SEM images were taken using JEOL JSM -7001F SEM. The palladium electrodes were deposited using shadow masks in an AJA International Orion 8 sputtering system.…”

“…[22][23][24][25][26] Recently, we demonstrated large-area continuous roll-to-roll nanoimprinting of 1D and 2D micrometer to sub-100 nm features on fl exible substrate using perfl uoropolyether (PFPE) hybrid molds on a custom designed roll-toroll nanoimprinter. [ 27 ] R2RNIL is a platform process technology that can be adapted to a wide range of applications including fl at panel displays, [ 28,29 ] biomedical devices, [ 30 ] fl exible solar cells and antirefl ective coatings for solar cells. [ 31 ] But the full potential of R2R NIL fabrication has can be applied to other areas such as the fabrication of physical, chemical and biological sensors etc.…”

“…Elaborate description of the design and use of the R2R nanoimprinter are described in detail in a previous publication. [ 27 ] The R2R NanoEmboss 101 tool (Carpe Diem Technologies, MA, USA) consists of fi ve sections, namely unwind, coating, imprinting, metrology/coating, and rewind. A Mayer rod coating technique was used throughout this work.…”

Development of radio-frequency heating-assisted nanoimprint with PETG solution for nanostructure-based biosensors

“…UV-NIL is a rapid nanofabrication technique and has been used for large-area and high-throughput fabrication. 18,19 A suitable liquid must remain in contact with a UV-transparent patterned template for UV-NIL. The separation process may result in substantial damage to the resist or the template if adhesion is high.…”

Printing low-melting-point alloy ink to directly make a solidified circuit or functional device with a heating pen

“…Among the various printing techniques, such as micro-contact printing [13], nanoimprinting [14], screen printing [15], stencil printing [16,17], drop-on-demand inkjet printing [18] and roll-toroll printing [19], direct additive printing has many advantages such as low cost and easy operation compared with the conventional vacuum deposition and photolithographic patterning methods [20]. In recent years, Russo et al [21] demonstrated a facile pen-on-paper method to directly create flexible printed electronics using conductive silver ink.…”