R2R UV nanoimprinting

Roll-to-roll or continuous roller nanoimprinting is an emerging manufacturing platform that could benefit a range of application areas including nanofluidics, biomedicine, data-storage media and optical elements.
SVG Optronics have designed and used the roll-to-roll UV nano-imprinting systems to manufacturing the micro-nano-structure films for display, printing and touch panel industries. The technique is well suited to mass-producing inexpensive high-resolution resin moulds with nanoscale as well as mixed micro- and nanoscale features for downstream contact nanolithography. 


Researchers at the SVG Optronics have used UV roll-to-roll nanoimprinting to fabricate high-fidelity optical and conductive products with nan- and micro-oscale as well as mixed micro- and nanoscale features  from 50 nm - 50um feature diameter, at up to 6000 cm2 in area and at a throughput of 30 m min–1.
Nicke moulds produced by this method can be fabricated at costs that would allow the mould to be used once and then discarded and recycled. This creates tremendous efficiency gains by eliminating mould-cleaning steps and inherent mould degradation associated with re-use and dramatically improves the cost-production profile for low unit-cost products, which require one or more nanoscale lithography steps.
In the mass-production, through multiple material carrier types (UV cured acrylic resin, PMMA). Fabricated Nickel moulds were used in batch mode thermal nanoimprint lithography to demonstrate allmost same. The scientists found that the combined feature shrinkage of a single UV curing replication cycle followed by thermal embossing was small enough to avoid substantially affecting replication fidelity and uniformity in terms of measured feature height.