Laser processing for plastic electronics

Sara Ver-Bruggen - 12 Jan 2011

Oxford Lasers, the UK university's original spin-out, is developing a laser processing tool specifically for organic electronics.

By mid-2010 Oxford Lasers will have built a demonstration laser unit for a 30 x 30cm substrate area, as part of its work in the EU-funded Fast2Light project.

The consortium project, led by the Holst Centre in the Netherlands, is developing high-throughput, roll-to-roll, large-area processes for producing flexible polymer-OLED foils.

The fabrication technique used in Fast2Light is slot die coating, where a substrate on a web or roll is continuously coated and has to be patterned afterwards using lasers. The technique has several advantages, including no delamination, no residues left behind and no damage to the barrier layers in the stack.

Ablation

The laser process developed by Oxford Lasers for the OLED application uses extremely short pulses for ablation to prevent thermal damage to the stack, known as photomechanical ablation - a technique already used in corrective eye surgery and in paintings restoration. Adapting the technique for the Fast2Light project involved careful matching of laser optical properties to thermomechanical OLED properties, explains Oxford Lasers' micromachining systems and applications project leader Dimitris Karnakis.

An advantage of the laser technique is that the same system can be used in the fabrication of different types of organic electronic devices. It can also process combinations of different material layers, such as organic and inorganic.

Oxford Lasers is following up several leads for the laser system through its involvement in Fast2Light, which Karnakis says has been useful for presenting the company with new business opportunities in organic electronics.

Just under a third of Oxford Lasers' business comes from the microelectronics industry, where it works with companies such as Philips. Other markets the company supplies include pharmaceutical, automotive and telecoms.

The next issue of +Plastic Electronics is a photonics special. A series of articles will investigate the interaction of the photonics and organic electronics, highlight trends for future convergence and assess the barriers to commercialisation.
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