skip to main content


Title: Tension Control in Roll-to-Roll Mechanical Peeling for 2D Material Transfer and Transfer Printing
A major challenge of the large-scale application of two-dimensional (2D) materials is the scaling up of the process for its growth and transfer. Mechanical peeling has been demonstrated to be a promising method for transferring graphene in a fast and environmentally friendly manner. However, efforts in scaling up the process have been lacking. Performing mechanical peeling using a roll-to-roll (R2R) system could significantly increase the throughput of graphene transfer. Such a R2R process does not exist in industry. In this paper a novel R2R mechanical peeling system that has both speed and tension control capabilities is presented. Controllers that control the peeling tensions on both sides of the peeling front are developed based on a tension dynamics model. Both controllers contain a feedback and a feedforward term to account for large steady-state error. The control performance is validated using both experiments and simulation, demonstrating that the R2R mechanical peeling technique can be a viable method for dry transfer of 2D materials in a high-throughput industrial setting.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2041470
NSF-PAR ID:
10311116
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Editor(s):
Sreenivasan, S.V.
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2021 International Conference on Micro- and Nano-devices Enabled by R2R Manufacturing
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Abstract Roll-to-roll (R2R) dry transfer is an important process for manufacturing of large-scale two-dimensional (2D) materials and printed flexible electronics. Existing research has demonstrated the feasibility of dry transfer of 2D materials in a roll-to-roll setting with mechanical peeling. However, the process presents a significant challenge to system control due to the lack of understanding of the mechanical peeling behavior and the complexity of the nonlinear system dynamics. In this study, an R2R peeling process model is developed to understand the dynamic interaction among the peeling process parameters, including adhesion energy, peeling force, angle, and speed. Both simulation and experimental studies are conducted to validate the model. It is shown that the dynamic system model can capture the transient behavior of the R2R mechanical peeling process and be used for the process analysis and control design. 
    more » « less
  2. Sreenivasan, S.V. (Ed.)
    A roll-to-roll (R2R) technique is especially desirable for transfer of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) graphene towards high-speed, low-cost, renewable, and environmentally friendly manufacturing of graphene-based electronic devices, such as flexible touchscreens, field effect transistors and organic solar cells. A R2R graphene dry transfer system is recently developed. Monolayer graphene is transferred from a copper growth substrate to a polymer backing layer by mechanical peeling. In this work, we present an experimental study to examine the effects of line speed of the mechanical peeling process on the transferred graphene quality. It is shown that the effect of line speed is not monotonic, and an optimal speed exists to yield the highest and most consistent electrical conductivity of transferred graphene among the process conditions studied. This study provides understanding of process parameter effects and demonstrates the potential of the R2R dry transfer process for large-scale CVD graphene toward industrial applications. 
    more » « less
  3. Roll-to-roll(R2R) peeling is an innovative method that transfers flexible electronics and 2D materials from the flexible substrate where they are grown to the end-use substrate. This process enables the full potential of R2R 2D material fabrication methods in a continuous, high-throughput, and environment friendly manner. During the R2R peeling process, the device patterning causes periodic changes in the adhesion energy between the device and substrate. This periodic disturbance can degrade the quality of the final product if not properly controlled. Current control methods used for the R2R peeling process do not explicitly reject the periodic disturbance. It is therefore desirable to develop a controller that is capable of performing periodic disturbance rejection. This paper presents a model-based repetitive controller that integrates a frequency estimation of the disturbance into the R2R peeling control to maintain the optimal peeling process performance. A linear estimator using system identification techniques is employed. The simulation results show that the developed controller achieves better R2R process performance when compared to a conventional model-based controller. 
    more » « less
  4. Abstract

    A major challenge for graphene applications is the lack of mass production technology for large‐scale and high‐quality graphene growth and transfer. Here, a roll‐to‐roll (R2R) dry transfer process for large‐scale graphene grown by chemical vapor deposition is reported. The process is fast, controllable, and environmentally benign. It avoids chemical contamination and allows the reuse of graphene growth substrates. By controlling tension and speed of the R2R dry transfer process, the electrical sheet resistance is achieved as 9.5 kΩ sq−1, the lowest ever reported among R2R dry transferred graphene samples. The R2R dry transferred samples are used to fabricate graphene‐based field‐effect transistors (GFETs) on polymer. It is demonstrated that these flexible GFETs feature a near‐zero doping level and a gate leakage current one to two orders of magnitude lower than those fabricated using wet‐chemical etched graphene samples. The scalability and uniformity of the R2R dry transferred graphene is further demonstrated by successfully transferring a 3 × 3 in2sample and measuring its field‐effect mobility with 36 millimeter‐scaled GFETs evenly spaced on the sample. The field‐effect mobility of the R2R dry transferred graphene is determined to be 205 ± 36 cm2 V−1.

     
    more » « less
  5. Nano-Impression Lithography (NIL) has been demonstrated to produce nano features on webs that have value to society. Such demonstrations have largely been the result of NIL processes that involve the discrete stamping of a mold with nano-impressions into a thermoplastic web or a web coated with resin that is cured during the imprint process. To scale NIL to large area products which can be produced economically requires the imprinting to occur on roll-to-roll (R2R) process machines. Nip mechanics is a topic which has been explored in relation to drive nips and winding nips in R2R machines. Nip rollers will be needed to imprint webs at production speeds to ensure mold filling on an imprint roller. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate while the nip roller is required that it can also induce imperfections in the imprinted nano-features. Successful imprinting will require nip loads sufficient to fill the imprint mold and then addressing the nip mechanics which can induce shear and slip that could destroy the nano-features. The objective is to demonstrate through the study of nip mechanics that this shear and slip can be inhibited through the selection of nip materials and tension control of the web entering and exiting the nipped imprint roller. 
    more » « less