Roll-to-roll hot embossing system with shape preserving mechanism for the large-area fabrication of microstructures

Roll-to-roll (R2R) hot embossing is a promising approach to fulfilling the demands of high throughput fabrication of large-area polymeric components with micro-structure arrays which have been widely employed in the domains of optics, optoelectronics, biology, chemistry, etc. Nevertheless, the characteristic of continuous and fast forming for the R2R hot embossing process limits material flow during filling stage and results in significant springback during demolding stage. As a result, forming defects usually appear and the process window is very narrow which hinders the industrialization of this technology. This study developed a R2R hot embossing machine and proposed a shape preserving mechanism to extend the material filling time and realized the cooling effect during the demolding process. Comparative experiments were conducted on the R2R hot embossing process for micro-pyramid arrays to understand the effect of shape preserving mechanism. The influence of tension force and encapsulation angle to the forming quality was systematically analyzed. Furthermore, the influence of processing parameters has been investigated by using the one-variable-at-a-time method. Afterwards, a series of experiments based on the central composite design approach have been conducted for the analysis of variance and the establishment of empirical models of the R2R hot embossing process. As a result, the process window was extended by the shape preserving mechanism. More importantly, the feeding speed was improved from 0.5 m min^-1 to 2.5 m min^-1 for the large-area fabrication of micro-pyramid arrays, which is very attractive to the industrialization of this technology.