Direct-Write Photolithography for Cylindrical Tooling Fabrication in Roll-to-Roll Microcontact Printing

• Main Authors: Nietner, Larissa Franciska (Contributor), Hardt, David E. (Author)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity (Contributor), Hardt, David E (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), 2017-04-07T20:45:35Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

The scale-up of microcontact printing (μCP) to a roll-to-roll technique for large-scale surface patterning requires scalable tooling for continuous pattern printing with μm-scale features (e.g., 1-50 μm). Here, we examine the process of creating such a tool using an optical direct-write or "maskless" method working on a rotating cylindrical substrate. A predictive model of pattern formation is presented along with experimental results to examine the key control factors for this process. It is shown that factors can be modulated to vary the cross-sectional shape in addition to feature height and width. This feature can then be exploited to improve the robustness of the final printing process.
Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM