Search for: All records

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. 

Webs are subjected to large out-of-plane deformations when transiting rollers in process machinery. Webs are often treated as membranes in analysis but become subject to significant bending strains when transiting rollers. Anticlastic bending of thick plates is a known phenomenon. The anticlastic effect is often ignored for webs which are thin. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that the large bending deformations webs are subjected to on rollers influence the internal membrane stresses and deformations in the web. The results will show that the concept of normal entry of a web to a roller has complexity that has previously not been considered. It will be demonstrated that a cross direction tensile membrane stress results from the large deformations that acts to stabilize the web and inhibit wrinkle formation.