Micro hot-embossing is a powerful tool in the agile additive manufacturing industry. Its applications include optical components, micro-fluidic devices, MEMS, hydrophobic/hydrophilic surfaces, and energy harvesting devices. To overcome a drawback of low-process speed, the R2R process has been innovated, with novel embossing mechanisms and process optimization. Also, new materials beyond thermoplastic polymers have been applied to develop new devices, or enhance device performance. This review surveys recent progress in micro hot-embossing technology, in terms of new mold fabrication process, process innovation, and various applications.

Hot embossing techniques are used to engrave patterns on plastic substrates. Roll based hot embossing uses a heated roll for a continuous process. A heated roll with relief patterns is impressed on a preheated plastic substrate. Then, the substrate is cooled down quickly to prevent thermal shrinkage. The roll speed is normally very slow to ensure substrate temperature increase up to the glass transition temperature. In this paper, we propose a noncontact preheating technique using focused infrared light. The infrared light is focused as a line beam on a plastic substrate using an elliptical mirror just before entering the hot embossing roll. The mid range infrared light efficiently raises the substrate temperature. For preliminary tests, substrate deformation and temperature changes were monitored according to substrate speed. The experiments show that the proposed technique is a good possibility for high speed hot embossing.

Silver (Ag) grid patterned PET substrates were manufactured by thermal roll-imprinting methods. We coated highly conductive layer (HCL) as a supply electrode on the Ag grid patterned PET in the three kinds of conditions. One was no-HCL without conductive PEDOT:PSS on the Ag grid patterned PET substrate, another was thin-HCL coated with ~50 nm thickness of conductive PEDOT:PSS on the Ag grid PET, and the other was thick-HCL coated with ~95 nm thickness of conductive PEDOT:PSS. These three HCLs in order showed 73.8%, 71.9%, and 64.7% each in transmittance, while indicating 3.84 Ω/□, 3.29 Ω/□, and 2.65 Ω/□ each in sheet resistance. Fabrication of organic solar cells (OSCs) with HCL Ag grid patterned PET substrates showed high power conversion efficiency (PCE) on the thin-HCL device. The thick-HCL device decreased efficiency due to low open circuit voltage (V<SUB>OC</SUB>). And the Ag grid pattern device without HCL had the lowest energy efficiency caused by quite low short current density (J<SUB>SC</SUB>).

Flexible electronics have been to the fore because it is believed that flexibility can add incredible value such as light weight and mobility into the existing electronic devices and create new markets of large-area and low-cost electronics such as wearable eletronics in near future. Offset printing processes are regarded as major candidates for manufacturing the flexible electronics because they can provide the patterning resolution of micron-size effectively in large-area. In view of mechanics, the most important viewpoint in offset printing is how to achieve the synchronized movement of two contact surfaces in order to prevent slip between two contact surfaces and distortion of the blanket surface during ink transfer so that the high-resolution and good-overlay patterns can be printed. In this paper, a novel low-cost measurement method of the synchronization error using the motor control output signals is proposed and the compensation method is presented to minimize the synchronization error.

We developed a compact high-precision slot-die coating machine for thin-film deposition on a flexible substrate. For smooth and precise coating, air-bearing and linear motor system were employed to minimize velocity ripple. The gap control mechanism is specially designed to have repeatability of gap between nozzle and substrate under 1 μm. Due to extremely precise gap control, the machine can coat thin-films down to 50 nm with 200 mm × 100mm size. A thin film of Ag nano-particle ink is coated for demonstration.

In this paper, silver pastes were printed on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film using screen printing and evaluated the drying characteristics by using dry oven and NIR drying system. The printed Ag films were dried at 140 ℃ and the drying time was changed from 10 to 90 seconds. To evaluate the electrical properties of printed Ag film, sheet resistance was compared. The sheet resistance of the dried thin silver film by using NIR drying system more rapidly decreased. To clarify this phenomena, the morphology and component of the dried surfaces were measured by using the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the energy dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX), respectively. In the EDX measurement results, the oxidation of the surface was observed in the dried thin film by using the dry oven. The NIR drying system is more applicable than conventional hot air drying to apply continuous printing system.

A new rotary gravure-offset printing unit is constructed by paralleling a gravure plate cylinder, a blanket cylinder and a impression roller. A Muti-Unit Gravure-Offset Printing Press(MUGOP) equipped with a series of the 3 printing units is utilized for roll-to-roll fine printing. Its core technology is precise over-piling printing of fine patterns. The severe problems of ‘slurring’ and ‘doubling’ in typical offset printing are unavoidable, which can be eliminated by applying a soft pad-type blanket cylinder and the unique ‘true rolling’ technique. Nip pressure between the blanket cylinder and the plate cylinder is measured by the constant pressure control system which equipped with load cells attached on the cylinders’ axes. The running circumference of the blanket cylinder is increased to reach the same circumference of the plate cylinder as the pressure increasing, so that the specifications of the blanket cylinder is determined by the relationships of its shore hardness, diameter and nip pressure. When a softer blanket is used, a blanket cylinder of smaller diameter could give higher nip pressure. Realization of the true rolling technique on the MUGOP makes multilayer printing possible as well as fine printing in printed electronics.

Ink transfer process is very important to determine quality of printed pattern, therefore its mechanism should be understood to control printing quality. Although there have been many attempts to understand ink transfer mechanism by numerical simulation and experimental studies, their model was too much simple to model realistic printing process and our understanding is not enough yet. In this paper we designed ink transfer visualization system to present flow visualization of ink transfer process for gravure offset printing. We considered rotational effect of blanket roll which is related with printing speed and used non-Newtonian fluid as working fluid such as Ag paste. For printing unit, cantilever-type blanket roll is used for convenient visualization of ink transfer. Serial images were captured continuously by using highspeed CMOS camera and long range microscope. We investigated the effects of various design parameters such as printing speed and pattern angle on the ink transfer process. We found more stretched ink filament for non-Newtonian fluid than Newtonian fluid. As increasing printing speed, length of stretched ink filament and height of break-up point are also increased. We also compared ink transfer process between CD and MD pattern and its relationship with ink transfer mechanism.

In this study, to fabricate a low-resistance and high optical transparency electrode film, the following steps were performed: the design and manufacture of electroforming stamp, the fabrication of a thermal roll-imprinted polycarbonate (PC) patterned films, the filled low-resistance Ag paste using doctor blade process on patterned PC films and spin coating by conductive polymers. As a result of PC films imprinted line width of 26.69±2 ㎛, channel length of 245.57±2 ㎛, and pattern depth of 7.54±0.2 ㎛. Ag paste to fill part of the patterned film with conductive polymer coating and then the following parameters were obtained: a sheet resistance of 11.1 Ω/sq, optical transparency values at a wavelength of 550 ㎚ was 80.31 %.

This paper presents how to design and fabricate the gravure offset printing system for enhancement of register precision. Factors of precision error are caused by imprecision of gravure plate, deformation of substrate, printing quality change due to the change of ink viscosity, Imprecision of printing machine, and so on. This study suggests concept design of gravure offset printing system which is able to minimize or remove these error factors.