EFFECT OF SEPARATION FORCES IN UV-REPLICATION

This work at Heptagon aims to understand the root cause of a PDMS stamp (or tool) degradation – and ultimately reduce it – in a step-and-repeat UV-replication (UV-REM) process for mastering. It is conducted by studying the separation forces experienced by the tool, as suggested by prior internal work. A setup allowing to record separation forces was tested and integrated in the industrial machine. If correlation has been found between recombination parameters and separation forces, no correlation with form error was observed, which characterizes tool degradation. Further experiments focusing on UV-curable materials and tool modifications (tempering, coating) were performed and showed promising results, with up to 72% reduction in degradation rate using tempered tools.