Flexographic printing, which involves high-speed contact of an inked stamp against a substrate, is of increasing interest for scalable manufacturing of electronics in new formats. However, the adaptation of flexography to thinner, finer features which are generally required for printed electronics requires improved understanding of stamp-substrate contact mechanics. Here, we present a desktop plate-to-roll (P2R) printing apparatus which enables the study of flexographic printing in a semi-continuous format that mimics industrial printing. In particular, we tailor the specifications of the machine to use nanoporous stamps which have been shown to enable flexographic printing of ultrathin ink features with micron-scale linewidth. Printing with nanoporous stamps requires precise control of stamp-substrate contact force (2–250 mN) and elimination of shear force at the interface among others; these are accomplished using a flexure-supported substrate, and by coordinated rotary-linear motion of the system. We detail the design and evaluation of the P2R machine and demonstrate printing of high-resolution features (<3 μm line width) with nanoporous stamps at speeds of up to 0.2 m/s.

柔性版印刷涉及将墨印章与基材高速接触，因此对于可扩展制造新格式的电子越来越引起人们的关注。然而，将柔性版印刷术适应于印刷电子设备通常需要的更薄，更细的特征需要更好地了解印模-基底接触机理。在这里，我们介绍了一种台式机到卷（P2R）印刷设备，该设备能够研究模仿工业印刷的半连续格式的柔版印刷。特别是，我们调整了机器的规格，以使用纳米多孔压模，这种压模已被证明可以柔版印刷具有微米级线宽的超薄墨水特征。使用纳米多孔印章进行印刷需要精确控制印章与基材的接触力（2–250 mN），并消除界面处的剪切力。这些通过使用挠曲支撑的基板以及系统的协调旋转线性运动来完成。我们详细介绍了P2R机器的设计和评估，并演示了使用纳米孔压模以高达0.2 m / s的速度打印高分辨率特征（线宽<3μm）的方法。