• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.1.2-1.2
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• 2011

With recent advances in materials and products, materials processing experiences new challenges. More particles and polymers in material side and thinner and faster deformations in processing side. It happens in most emergying industries such as manufacturing of batteries, solar cells, multi-layer chips, displays, printed electronics, to list a few. In most cases, they are manufactured by coating or printing process, which is defined as a process in which gas is replaced by liquid on a substrate. In this sense, casting, inkjet printing, and roll-to-roll printing are all included. The printing process consists of three unit processes. As the materials used in the above mentioned applications typically contain a large amount of particles with polymers and solvents, they continuously change microstructures during preparation, flow, and even drying. However, little is known about the flow characteristics of such complex fluids and less is known about how to design and control the process. Therefore, for better control of the process and for better quality of the product, we need to understand the flow characteristics of these complex fluids under extremely fast flow environment.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.1153-1158
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• 2011

Roll-to-roll process is an emerging mass production method for printed and flexible electronics such as touch screen panel, RFID tag, thin film solar cell, and flexible display due to its high throughput. High precision in printing and coating is required to apply functional materials onto substrate. For such reason, every part of the roll-to-roll equipment needs to be precisely fabricated and to retain its precision under regular operation. In this article, the precision of cantilever type idler roller and a novel method to mitigate its deflection under web tension loading are discussed and the method is verified using both the numerical and the experimental works. The proposed method improves the structural rigidity of cantilever type roller whose advantages, such as low capital cost and high web path configurability, are maintained.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.35-43
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• 2000

Laser direct patterning of the coated photoresit (PMER-NSG31B) layer was studied to make halftone dots on gravure printing roll. The selective laser hardening of photoresist by Ar-ion laser(wavelength : 333.6nm∼363.8nm) was controlled by the A/O modulator. The coating thickness in the range of 5㎛∼11㎛ could be obtained by using the up-down directional moving device along the vertically located roll. The width, thickness and hardness of the hardened lines formed under laser power of 200∼260㎽ and irradiation time of 4.4∼6.6$\mu$ sec/point were investigated after developing. The hardened width increased according to the increase of coating thickness. Though the hardened thickness was changed due to the effect of the developing solution, the hardened layer showed good resistance to the scratching of 2H pencil. Also, the hardened minimum line widths of 10㎛ could be obtained. The change of line width was also found after etching, and the minimum line widths of 6㎛ could be obtained. The hardened lines showed the good resistance to the etching solution. Finally, the experimental data could be applied to make gravure halftone dots using the developed imaging process, successfully.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.877-880
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• 2009

A curing process in post-printing section of R2R process is required for an electrical property of the printed pattern when devices such as RFID, Solar cell are printed. PEN as well as heat-stabilized PET which is used as a plastic substrate would be deformed at high temperature due to change of its elastic modulus. And crack in the printed pattern, which is on the plastic substrate is occurred due to the deformation of the substrate. The occurrence of crack causes electrical resistance to increase and the quality of the device to deteriorate. In case of RFID antenna, the range of reading distance is shortened as the electrical resistance of the antenna is increased. Therefore, the deformation of the plastic substrate, which causes the occurrence of crack, should be minimized by setting up low operating tension in R2R process. In low tension, slippage between a moving substrate and a roller would be generated when the operating speed is increased. And scratch would be occurred when slippage is generated due to an air entrainment, which is related to the thickness of the air film. The thickness of the air film is increased when operating speed is increased as shown by simulation based on mathematical model. The occurrence of scratch in conductive pattern printed by roll to roll process is a critical damage because it causes degradation or failure of electrical property of it.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.1146-1152
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• 2011

Ink transfer process is very important to determine quality of printed pattern, therefore its mechanism should be understood to control printing quality. Although there have been many attempts to understand ink transfer mechanism by numerical simulation and experimental studies, their model was too much simple to model realistic printing process and our understanding is not enough yet. In this paper we designed ink transfer visualization system to present flow visualization of ink transfer process for gravure offset printing. We considered rotational effect of blanket roll which is related with printing speed and used non-Newtonian fluid as working fluid such as Ag paste. For printing unit, cantilever-type blanket roll is used for convenient visualization of ink transfer. Serial images were captured continuously by using high-speed CMOS camera and long range microscope. We investigated the effects of various design parameters such as printing speed and pattern angle on the ink transfer process. We found more stretched ink filament for non-Newtonian fluid than Newtonian fluid. As increasing printing speed, length of stretched ink filament and height of break-up point are also increased. We also compared ink transfer process between CD and MD pattern and its relationship with ink transfer mechanism.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.263-271
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• 2010

e-Printing is a new manufacturing technology for electronic products and is based on traditional printing technology. The electronic products require a large area to facilitate printing and to be economical. A gravure printing system that supports a roll to roll (R2R) manufacturing process can be used to reduce the cost and to achieve the required accuracy. Many factors such as drying method, drying temperature, tension,-printing velocity, ink viscosity, ink conductivity, pattern accuracy, and dot geometry influence the performance of printed electronics. These factors are closely interrelated. The optimum condition for printing must be determined to enhance the performance of the printed electronics. In this study, lines and areas are printed using a gravure printer with conductive ink under different conditions of the above mentioned factors. The results are analyzed to investigate the influence of various factors on the performance of the printed electronics.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.462-467
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• 2013

In this paper, we analyzed the effects of doctoring process on the patterns of Ag ink in gravure off-set printing. The parameters of doctoring process were the angle and the pressure, which was represented by the depth of blade movement to the gravure roll, of doctor blade to the surface of gravure roll, and the angle of patterns engraved on the gravure roll to the doctor blade moving direction. The proper parameters were extracted for the fine patterns and they were 15 mm for the pressure, $60^{\circ}$ for the blade angle. And the angle of patterns with respect to the blade movement should be less than $40^{\circ}$ for the best results. The gravure off-set printing with the above parameters was carried out to print gate electrodes and scan bus lines of OTFT-backplane for e-paper. The line width of $50{\mu}m$ was successfully obtained. The thickness of electrodes was $2.5{\mu}m$ and the surface roughness was $0.65{\mu}m$ and the sheet resistance was $15.8{\Omega}/{\Box}$.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.96-102
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• 2008

Manufacturing of printed electronics using printing technology has begun to get into the hot issue in many ways due to the low cost effectiveness to existing semi-conductor process. This technology, with low cost and high productivity, can make it possible to produce printed electronics such as TFT, solar cell, RFID Tag, printed battery, and so on. In this study, apparatus of gravure-offset printing are developed for fine line-width/gap printing and the results obtained from the apparatus shows that it is possible to make around 20 micro-meter line-width/gap printing patterns. The roll-to-roll printing system for fine line-width printing based on primary experiment is presented. The printing results obtained from the system shows around 30 micro-meter line-width/gap printing patterns.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.56-61
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• 2010

Scanning head has used to detect the error signal in register controller. However the resolution of the system is not enough for E-printing(Electronic-paper printing). In this paper, the register mark shapes and process techniques are studied using a smart camera which can detect the register mark and calculate the printing error. With these, a register controller within 10[um] of error range is developed for e-printing system and confirmed with experiments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.792-797
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• 2009

This paper presents the evaluation of PID and fuzzy control logic for the lateral position control of a moving web in roll-to-roll (R2R) printed electronics. In addition, we report the implementation of computer simulation software that enables us to develop the control logic in a graphic user interface and to test the controller performance in 3D dynamic environment. A mathematical model of the web dynamics is described first to explain the lateral motion of a moving web. Based on the model, PID and fuzzy controllers are designed, and embedded in the simulation software. Under the simulation conditions for fabricating RFID antenna by R2R printing, the results indicate that the fuzzy controller shows a better performance and can be more suitable for R2R multi-layer printed electronics.