
Roll-to-Roll plant at JOANNEUM RESEARCH Materials
Large-area micro- and nanostructuring
Our roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography (roll-to-roll NIL, R2R NIL) facilitates continuous and therefore cost-effective production of micro and nanopatterns on large-area flexible substrates targeting electronic, optoelectronic, photovoltaic and sensoric applications, film processing and packaging as well as pharmaceuticals and biosciences.
R2R NIL is a revolutionary step forward, based on discontinuous embossing processes (batch nanoimprint lithography techniques) introduced in the 1990s.
Our R2R activities are one of the core topics within the <link internal link in current>Micro and Nanostructuring group (Director: Barbara Stadlober).
The R2R pilot line allows us:
- to sustainably produce highly resolved conductive elements for organic electronics (thinconductors, nanoscale electrodes for organic transistors),
- to precisely create optical 2.5D structures for the light management in flexible films (coupling and outcoupling, light guiding) for applications in photonics,
- to realize 3D-structured bionic surfaces and complex nanopatterns on a large scale, which allow the artificial imitation of biological characteristics (shark skin, lotus effectgecko effect, structural colors),
- to produce complex microfluidic elements on foil for bioanalytic lab-on-foil systems in a cost-effective way, and
- to continuously produce optimized high-tech film surfaces for packaging, decoration, safety and labeling, which display improved optical, mechanical and chemical behavior due to their micro and nanostructural properties.