Lithography on flexible substrates
Photolithography is a mature technology for producing nano-scale features on rigid substrates. But applying it on foils is easier said than done. Through this program, Holst Centre and its partners aim to make lithography on flexible substrates commercially viable.
The program’s goal is to develop novel maskless and imprint lithography technologies capable of manufacturing sub-micron features on flexible substrates. Such technologies will be particularly useful in producing, for example, TFT driver circuits for displays and micro-fluidic channels for sensor arrays.
Besides the actual patterning technologies, the program investigates the behavior of foils during processing. Here the aim is to measure and predict how a foil will deform, as well as to develop foil-on-carrier and carrier-less foil handling techniques to minimize deformation. In addition, the program works to integrate all the necessary technologies into complete multi-layer processes that will lay the foundation for future high-volume manufacturing lines.
With a broad range of expertise, the program team is a real melting pot of industry and academia. It includes partners from throughout the value chain including materials suppliers, process developers, equipment makers and consumer electronics companies as well as materials scientists, physicists and chemists. The team has already had success in developing demonstrators that are feeding into other programs, for example:
- transistor patterning technologies for flexible display backplanes
- numerical models for predicting foil deformation
- foil-on-carrier lamination
- maskless lithography on flexible substrates
- demonstrations of micron and sub-micron patterns using imprinting