Momentary Local Laser Heating in Thermal Roll-to-Plate Nanoimprinting; Node Decoupling with Axiomatic Design

The independence axiom of axiomatic design to decouple interference among functional requirements might be effective in designing new processes. This paper reports an application of this concept to our design of roll-to-plate thermal nanoimprinting using laser heating. The authors, instead of heating an entire roller, casted a laser beam through a glass roller to a thin metal film on the mold to produce a momentary and local heat source. The mold immediately cooled down after the laser heating and the patterned resin did not reflow back to flat shapes; we succeeded in decoupling the node of heating and cooling.