Large-area roll printing and replication forming with curvature control of microlens array structures

This study used flexible polymer materials in large-area roll printing to control the curvature feature size of the microstructure mold array of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) through system-developed equipment and gas-assisted molding processing. It designed and developed special roll printing equipment for curvature-adjustable flexible polymer mold for a series of tests regarding material mechanical properties. Mold, wear characteristics, and mechanical property parameters were obtained for experimental simulation, where the optimal parameters of microstructure mold forming with gas-assisted control were simulated. The simulation results were consistent with those in actual roll printing. The preliminary optical testing and applications were carried out, and verified that the innovative continuous roll printing process can obtain good large-area array forming structures.