Direct Fabrication of Rigid Microstructures on Metal Rollers Using Dry Film Photoresist
Date Issued
2007
Date
2007
Author(s)
Jiang, Liang-Ting
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
The importance of roller embossing for mass production is increasing because of its rapid, continuous production. The fabrication of microstructure rollers is the key technology. Most of the microstructure rollers fabrication methods are very complicated and costly, demanding high-end facilities. Furthermore, mold sliding and warping problems are frequently encountered because of the weak adhesion between molds and rollers. Soft rollers with microstructures have problems such as poor durability and temperature endurance.
This study proposes a novel fabrication method of rollers with microstructure. This method takes advantage of the excellent adhesion of dry film photoresist on metal. By laminating it uniformly onto the curvy surface of metal rollers, micro-scale photoresist patterns can be directly fabricated on the surface of rollers. Non-planer lithography with flexible film photomask is first performed; wet etching or electroless plating process is followed. A roller with rigid metal microstructures can be obtained. The flexible film photomask can be easily designed using CAD software; it enhances the design flexibility and reduces the cost and time.
In this study, three kinds of roller fabrication processes using dry film photoresist are developed: The first two methods start with laminating dry film photoresist onto the surface of the roller, followed by non-planer lithography. Then the microstructures are fabricated by wet etching and electroless plating, respectively. Another method is to expose the dry film photoresist first, then laminate it onto the roller surface. The microstructure is fabricated by wet etching. The proper process parameters during dry film photoresist laminating process and non-planer lithography process are first investigated. Then the reproducibility between film photomask and the fabricated microstructure by the feature size difference in each process is studied.
After the roller fabrication, the metal rollers with microstructures are used in a hybrid extrusion embossing system. Microlens arrays on PC film have been successfully fabricated. The measured focal length is 682μm. This result proves that the rollers fabricated in this method can be used in roller embossing for microstructure mass production.
Dry film photoresist has its exposure limitation. To broaden the application range of dry film photoresist, the study also proposes a novel method. Microstructures with feature size smaller than the original limitation can be fabricated. This method is carried out by performing the dry film photoresist laminating twice and aligning exposure after each laminating step.
Subjects
乾膜光阻
滾輪壓印
滾輪製作
微結構製作
非平面微影
擠出滾輪壓印成型
Dry film resist
DFR
Roller embossing
Roller fabrication
microstructure fabrication
non-planar lithography
Extrusion rolling embossing
Type
thesis
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