Changwoo Lee/Hyunkyoo Kang/Hojoon Kim/Ho Anh Duc Nguyen/Keehyun Shin
The Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, vol. 24, no. 1, pp.315-318, 2010

Abstract : R2R (Roll to roll) printed electronics has been an attractive technology for the mass production. Therefore, many research works have been focused on an optimal flexible substrate, ink formulation, printing process, curing method for a conductive ink in printed electronics applications. However, they did not relate their analysis with the system parameters of R2R continuous printing systems. In this paper, it is found that a printed pattern geometric quality which affects functional quality of printed electronic device could be changed with respect to operating tension of bare substrate even if local optimized ink, substrate, and printing process were applied. Additionally, ink transfer mechanism for R2R printed electronics is analyzed regarding a dynamic surface energy of a bare substrate under a tension in R2R printing systems. With the aim of an efficient prediction of the thickness of R2R printed patterns for given operating conditions, a simple meta-model is developed by using the design of experiment (DOE) method. Also, the proposed meta-model has been verified by several experiments. Through the results, it is presented that how to find an optimal operating tension in R2R printed electronics for guaranteeing a required thickness of R2R printed patterns.

Keyword : At least four keywords; Ink transfer mechanism; Matching correlation; Roll to roll (R2R) printed electronics; Tension; Thickness