Seamless Drum Moulds with Nano and Microscale Structures

New technology from US-based startup SMS, called ‘Nanocoining’, is helping to bring nano- and microscale patterns to the industrial scale. The technology creates seamless cylindrical drum moulds for roll-to-roll nanoimprint processes with a patterning rate of up to 2 square inches (2,500mm2) per second – more than 500 times faster than typical electron-beam tools.

In Nanocoining, an engineered pattern with features between 200 nm and 10 μm pitch and up to a 1:1 aspect ratio is etched into the tip of a diamond indenting tool using a focused ion beam or an etch-based process. Then, a custom-built ultra-precision lathe and control system are used to stitch together more than 45,000 indents per second, with each indent replicating the pattern in the tip of the ~200μm2 die. The company can write seamless 150mm long and 150mm diameter moulds in just a few hours.