MB UV Press Auto
The advanced UV Press is the lamination tool of choice when highest precision, reliability and repeatability during the lamination process are required. This system is most commonly applied in fully automated pilot-scale systems in which it is embedded into a supervisory control system.
As the last step in the encapsulation of OLEDs the UV Press laminates substrate and cover glass under vacuum conditions, creating a bubble-free end-sealing of the device. Initially a robot places substrate and cover glass into the receiving stage where both glasses are mechanically aligned to each other.
The following process runs completely automated following pre-defined recipes. The most important parameters of the recipes are process pressure, lamination pressure and curing time. Two different lamination methods are incorporated into the process control – mechanical pressing and the proprietary non-contact gas pressurization in which the glasses are laminated by a differential gas pressure allowing reaching highest pressure uniformities across the substrate/cover glass stack.
A range of different modular chucks are obtainable allowing laminating glasses with several shapes and sizes. The integrated UV source comes in two different configurations. With the standard setup all commonly used UV curing adhesives can be cured at moderate process times and heat load to the substrate.
When quick curing and minimum heat load to the OLED become important the standard source can be upgraded to an advanced, high-intensity source with optimized reflector geometry, IR-filter and improved uniformity across the entire substrate.
Underrated from many who entirely focus in their research on creating an optimized organic material stack, the lamination is an extremely critical, complicated and important step in the entire OLED process. Usually it represents the final step before the OLEDs can be transferred out of the inert environment.
Only an effective encapsulation of the substrate can provide the essential protection of the active layers from harmful components like oxygen and moisture as well as mechanical stress. Therefore, this process step is the prerequisite for a stable and durable OLED device.
