Project: Development of advanced nanoimprint lithography platform for large-area nanopatterning
Recent advance in nanopatterning technology has enabled exploration of new ideas to introduce new products in the market or improve existing products in their performance and quality. Those ideas include increase of LED efficiency, enhancement of picture quality in LCD, glass windows with self-cleaning function, to name a few. For example, nanopatterning of surface or substrate of LED is well-known to boost its efficiency, and surface patterning is an indispensable part of solar cell production to increase the light absorption. Despite remarkable progress in nanopatterning technology and abundant examples of its application, however, the present applications are still restricted to small area patterning. Looking back the history of semiconductor and flat panel display industry, scaling up to large area patterning is a foreseeable future trend, and there are already emerging applications demanding nanopatterning over larger area. OLED lighting is one of outstanding examples where R&D effort to increase its efficiency by incorporating nanopatterns within devices is abundant, but a transition from R&D to manufacturing is being hindered by lack of manufacturing platform for large area nanopatterning. Besides OLED lighting, there are plenty of applications that will get benefit by availability of large area manufacturing platform for nanopatterning: thin-film solar cell, moth-eye antireflection, wire grid polarizer, etc._x000D_ _x000D_ The goal of ANILP is to establish a 730 mm x 920 mm (Gen4) large area manufacturing platform for advanced nanopattening. The platform will be based on NanoImprint Lithography (NIL) which is the most cost-efficient nanopatterning technology. NIL has been developed from an emerging nanoreplication technology into a promising manufacturing technology in several different application areas. NIL is being already used in industry for example to enhance light output of LEDs, but its application is still limited to relatively small areas of wafer sizes between 2” and 6”. Obducat has successfully been able to scale up its NIL technology from 2” circular up to currently 8” square sizes. Although a demand in the industry for scaling up the NIL technology into larger area is very high, its development is still challenging in every aspect of technology involved: stamp manufacturing with a size matching to imprint machine, design and building of machine for uniform imprint over larger area, development of material and process, and stamp demolding from substrates without generating defects._x000D_ _x000D_ To achieve the goal, three CO development activities will be pursed within the project._x000D_- Machine design and building based upon Obducat’s NIL knowhow and previous scale up from 2” to 8” and experience from industrial manufacturing using NIL._x000D_- Novel stamp fabrication methods including the ability to recombine small area nanostructures into large stamps _x000D_ _x000D_ The new manufacturing platform from ANILP project will enable realization of a new generation of nanostructured organic large area electronics (OLAE) products beyond OLED lighting. The market for OLAE based products is growing rapidly and is expected to reach a size of 40 billion dollar by 2019. The ANILP manufacturing platform will put Europe in the forefront of this market. Besides this, nanopatterning over large area is expected to have a substantial impact in other fields including solar cells, printed electronics, and printed batteries. This will advance Europe into a leading position for nanotechnology manufacturing._x000D_ _x000D_ The project consortium comprises two SMEs and one research institutes with complementary expertise and long experience in related technologies. The role and R&D effort of each P will be:_x000D_- Obducat Technologies AB: Design and building of large area NIL manufacturing platform and associated process development._x000D_- Temicon GmbH: Scale up of recombination process and stamp technology for large area manufacturing platform._x000D_- AMO GmbH: Development of mastering and recombination process for the stamp._x000D_ _x000D_ In order to strengthen the consortium Asahi Glass Company (AGC) has agreed to support the project with knowledge on large area substrates and certain application specific know-how which will secure that the project target relevant industry requirements. AGC is a Japanese world leading manufacturer of glass for various applications in industries such as construction, automotive, display, electronics & energy. The ability to pattern glass substrates with nano-scale patterns will become more important in the future and in order to reach production efficiency the capability to pattern large areas will be of key importance. If the project is successfully developed AGC could be a future customers of large area NIL solutions.
|
Acronym
|
ANILP
(Reference Number: 8516)
|
|
Duration
|
01/10/2013 - 30/09/2016
|
|
Project Topic
|
A large-area nanoimprint lithography (NIL) platform for the substrate size of 730mm x920 mm will be developed. Large-area stamps matching to the platform will be also developed based on a recombination method.
|
|
Network
|
Eurostars
|
|
Call
|
Eurostars Cut-Off 10
|
Project partner
