|
Plarion has the facilities for injection moulding and UV replication, producing items with nano-metre feature size resolution cheaply, consistently and quickly.
UV - Nano-Imprint Lithography (UV-NIL)
 What is UV-NIL?
UV nano-imprint lithography describes a technique of replicating a physical structure into a UV-curable material, with a high degree of accuracy. It involves the embossing of nano features into a photo-polymer lacquer that is UV cured in-situ.
The UV-curable lacquer is applied to a substrate, for example by spin coating. A stamper is brought into contact with the wet lacquer, which is exposed to a UV flash lamp. This hardens the lacquer, which may then be peeled away from the stamper.
It is a cost-effective method of replicating a surface pattern in 3D, from several hundred microns down to a few nm.
Injection Moulding
Injection moulding is an alternative replication method, with an extremely high degree of accuracy and efficiency. A thermoplastic polymer at high temperature is injected into a mould cavity and brought into contact with a stamper. The variation in the transferred feature size from moulding to moulding is very small. For example, features of 30 nm are replicated to an accuracy of ±1 nm. Thickness variation can be as low as <0.1 % piece to piece.
- Accuracy
Feature size variation very small eg. 30nm +- 1nm from piece to piece
Sample Thickness variation < 0.1% piece to piece
- Speed
10-20 pieces per minute depending on material
- Materials
Typically thermoplastic polymers with a wide variety of properties
- Material Cost
Depends on material, eg polycarbonate ~2-3p/10g sample weight
|
