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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPONENTS, PACKAGING AND MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Practical Design Guidelines for the Development of
High-Precision Roll-to-Roll Slot-Die Coating
Equipment and the Process
Jinwoo Seong, Janghoon Park, Jongsu Lee, Byoungjoon Ahn, Joong Hyun Yeom, Jaemin Kim,
Tomi Hassinen, Sehun Rhee, Sunglim Ko, Dongjin Lee, and Kee-Hyun Shin
Abstract— This paper proposes practical design guidelines for
roll-to-roll (R2R) slot-die coating equipment with a precision
mechanism enabling high-accuracy coating performance. The
equipment is developed for specially fabricating organic pho-
tovoltaic devices. An R2R transportation module (capable of
unwinding, in-feeding, out-feeding, and rewinding), a slot-die
coating module, a far-infrared drying module, and a cleanliness
control module are incorporated into the equipment. When
used to apply an organic solution, the developed equipment can
provide an operating tension of 2.3%–11.3%, a coating velocity
of 2–7 m/min, a coating thickness of 28–95 nm, a uniformity
of 8%–23%, and a roughness of 2.86–7.71 nm. A review of
this equipment on the basis of theoretical and experimental
approaches is included in the detailed equipment specifications
and design guidelines for R2R slot-die coating machines.
Index Terms— Roll-to-roll (R2R), slot-die coating, tension
control.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HERE is an increasing need for high-precision
coating technology. The technology is applied for
fabricating advanced electronic devices, such as organic
photovoltaic (OPV) devices [1]–[3], sensors [4], organic thin-
film transistors [5], fuel cells [6], batteries [7], [8], and die-
sensitized solar cells [9], in addition to conventional products,
such as paper, adhesive tape, and photographic film [10].
Conventional coating processes were designed to produce a
thickness on the order of hundreds of micrometers [11], but
more recent coating applications require the application of a
coating having a thickness of only a few micrometers [12].
Manuscript received February 22, 2016; revised June 7, 2016 and
August 18, 2016; accepted September 21, 2016. Recommended for publication
by Associate Editor I. Fidan upon evaluation of reviewers’ comments.
(Jinwoo Seong and Janghoon Park contributed equally to this work.)
(Corresponding author: Kee-Hyun Shin.)
J. Seong, J. Park, J. Lee, B. Ahn, and J. Kim are with the Department
of Mechanical Design and Production Engineering, Konkuk University,
Seoul 143-701, South Korea.
J. H. Yeom and S. Rhee are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, South Korea.
T. Hassinen is with the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland,
02044 Espoo, Finland.
S. Ko, D. Lee, and K.-H. Shin are with the Flexible Display Roll-to-roll
Research Center, School of Mechanical Engineering, Konkuk University,
Seoul 143-701, South Korea (e-mail: khshin@konkuk.ac.kr).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCPMT.2016.2613141
2156-3950 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
Furthermore, advanced roll-to-roll (R2R) high-precision
coating processes have drawn considerable attention given
that they offer high throughput, cost-effectiveness, and
environmental friendliness [13].
For mass production applications involving the coating
of large areas, the development of appropriate equipment
is necessary. Equipment and processes have already been
developed for coating large areas as demanded by certain
applications. Blankenburg et al. [14] demonstrated the R2R
slot-die coating of OPVs by using a laboratory-scale machine
capable of handling a 50-mm web and a coating velocity of
1–4 m/min when forming 39–196-nm (dry thickness) poly
(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) [PEDOT:
PSS] and poly(3-hexylthiophene):phenyl-C61-butyric
acid methyl ester [P3HT:PCBM] layers, respectively.
Andersen et al. [15] succeeded in up-scaling flexible OPVs
by using four R2R processing machines that were incorporated
with R2R coaters, a testing machine, a laminating machine,
and a laser-cutting machine, and capable of handling a
width of 305 mm at a coating velocity of 1–20 m/min,
while producing a wet film thickness of 6.25–37 μm
(with all the layers deposited under different conditions).
Thus, the R2R-implemented coating production of OPVs
has been attracting considerable attention as a promising
next-generation technology.
The R2R process is based on web-handling technology.
Web-handling technology involves tension control and can
be classified into lateral control [16], register control [17],
velocity control [18], and taper tension control [19]. Because
the web is linked by a flexible, wide, and thin film between
several rollers, the design is known as a “flexible linked
system [20].”
To ensure highly precise manufacturing when using an
R2R system, it is important to develop an accurate machine
by first fully understanding the process (required web han-
dling performance) and the target application (thickness range,
required temperature, and cleanliness). Chang et al. [21]
developed an R2R web handling machine for the reverse-offset
printing of multiple layers with an overlay accuracy of ±5 μm.
To improve the accuracy of the R2R machine, Kang et al. [22]
proposed a novel algorithm for the high-accuracy measurement
of a moving web that achieved a displacement error of less
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPONENTS, PACKAGING AND MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY

Fig. 2. Developed R2R slot-die coating system. (a) Blueprint of the

equipment. (b) Image of the actual system.

Fig. 1. OPV devices coated by R2R aimed at a specific target application. Furthermore, variation in tension can alter the surface tension
of the substrate, affecting the coating ability of the deposited
than 2.5 μm. Furthermore, Kim et al. [23] developed an liquid [30]. Moreover, instability in tension results in coating
R2R multilayer printing machine for use with multiple gap changes [31] and makes it difficult to control the alignment
applications, varying the type of ink used. because the variation in tension is closely related to the lateral
In this paper, the practical design guidelines of the special- behavior of the web [32]. This paper presents the design
ized R2R slot-die coating equipment and the description of the guidelines of the R2R machine and the systemic development
development process of the equipment are provided. The target process of the equipment from the viewpoint of achieving the
application was the production of OPV devices because these proposed evaluation index.
constitute the most advanced products manufactured by the
R2R coating process. OPV devices comprise multiple layers II. M ODULAR D ESIGN AND I NTEGRATION
sequentially stacked on the top of a web substrate. These OF ROLL - TO -ROLL S YSTEM
layers are the transparent conductive layer, electron transport A. System Configuration
layer (ETL), active layer (AL), hole transport layer (HTL),
Computer-aided design drawings and photographs of the
and cathode layer, as shown in Fig. 1. Thickness control with
constructed R2R system are shown in Fig. 2. The R2R system
the moving web could be achieved by tuning the materials
measures approximately 1 × 10 m2 and can be consid-
or adjusting process conditions. Slot-die coating, which is a
ered to have four sections: (A) unwinding and in-feeding,
typical premetered coating method, was employed to apply the
(B) coating, (C) drying, and (D) out-feeding and rewinding,
coatings in this paper [24].
as shown in Fig. 2(a). Fig. 2(b) shows a detailed image of the
An evaluation index was devised to evaluate the devel-
equipment. The unwinding and in-feeding section (A) consists
oped equipment. The R2R slot-die coating equipment was
of an unwinder (UW), offset pivot guide (lateral controller),
constructed to satisfy the geometry of the OPV device, as
dancer, in-feeder (IF), load cell (L/C), L/C display, and guide
shown in Fig. 1. The dry thickness of the layer should be kept
controller. Part B is the coating zone, which includes a backup
between 20–129 nm [12], [25] to ensure high performance.
roll and slot-die coater that can apply coatings up to 130 mm in
Therefore, for a strip having a width of 10 mm, the target dry
width. The drying section has a length of 18 m (C) and consists
thicknesses were set at 20 nm for the ETL/HTL and 100 nm
of several idle rolls, a thermocouple, a far-infrared (FIR)
for the AL. The objective surface roughness (root mean
ceramic lamp, and a fan. The out-feeding and rewinding
square) was set at 10 nm based on values previously obtained
section (D) consists of an active linear dancer, offset pivot
by other researchers [26], given the effect of roughness on
guide, a dancer, an out-feeder (OF), and a rewinder (RW).
performance [27]. Furthermore, layer uniformity, that is, the
The sections are supported by rollers and legs to allow easy
variation in thickness along the lateral and longitudinal axes
positioning. Each section (module) is linked by a polyethylene
of the web, should be controlled within 5% [28].
terephthalate (PET) web substrate having a width of 150 mm.
Finally, the variation in coating velocity and the accuracy
The modular design [33] of the system is such that it is easy to
of tension control of the web were set at less than 10 m/min
make additions to the process as well as rearrange the system
and 5%, respectively. The coating velocity depends on the
at the site.
drying section length such that, provided that there is sufficient
drying time, the velocity will be greater. The recent reports of
tension control performance are 2% (10 ± 0.1 N) [29]. Tension B. Hardware and Software
control should be within 5% because this value would lead The hardware and software specifications of the R2R system
to a disturbance that would affect the overlay accuracy [17]. are listed in Table I. The components were purchased or
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SEONG et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-PRECISION R2R SLOT-DIE COATING EQUIPMENT 3

TABLE I
S PECIFICATIONS OF THE R2R S YSTEM (F EEDING M ODULE )

modified in order to satisfy the target velocity and tension con-

trol. In the selection and design, emphasis was placed on the
resolution of hardware and software. Ethernet (transmission
control protocol/internet protocol) was used for communica-
tion between the programmed human machine interface based
on the Indra-Logic program (Bosch Rexroth Co., Ltd.) and
the motion controller. Moreover, Sercos III was employed for
communication between the motion controller and the motor
stand. As will be detailed in Section II-C, the UW and RW
were controlled by a passive dancer to follow up the reference
tension (operating tension for each section) with the pressure
of the pneumatic cylinder, Pc .

C. Control Logic
There are two methods for controlling web tension:
an L/C-based control method and a dancer-based control
method [34]. The L/Cs measure the tension to enable moni-
toring and feedback loop control based on a reference tension
value. The L/C-based control method is widely used because
of its fast response [35]. On the other hand, the dancer can
absorb tension disturbances by the movement of a pendu-
lum [36]. There are two types of dancers: passive and active.
A passive dancer consists of a spring, damper, and idle roll.
There is no actuator, therefore the dancer arm moves by
tension disturbances. An active dancer can dynamically move
with actuators [37].
Fig. 3. (a) Control diagram of the developed R2R slot-die coating system.
(b) Passive dancer simulation with different dancer roll materials of Al (top)
and SUS (bottom). (c) Linear active dancer simulation with web velocities
of 2 and 7 m/min (bottom: input signal on x as step).
Frechard et al. [38] improved the displacement speed
by using a new UW and RW mechanism design based
on the active dancer with accumulators. In this paper, the
dancer system was adapted for high-precision tension control.
The schematic of the proposed system is shown in Fig. 3.
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPONENTS, PACKAGING AND MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
TABLE II
S IMULATION C ONDITIONS FOR PASSIVE D ANCER DYNAMICS
The derivative gain of this R2R system based on the pro-
portional and integral control logic makes the control signal
unstable.
The dynamic passive dancer model at the UW section can
be expressed as (1)–(4). Each model indicates the tension
model of the dancer system at the downstream and upstream
span lengths, the tangential velocity of a dancer roll, and the
tangential velocity of a dancer arm [36]
1 affecting stable coating, given the transfer of tension T3 from
T˙1 (t) = [ AE{−V0 (t) + V1 (t)} + vop T0 (t)
l1_u
−vop T1 (t) + AEl2 θ̇ (t)] (1)
1
T˙2 (t) = [ AE{−V1(t) + V2 (t)} + vop T1 (t)
l1_d
−vop T2 (t) + AEl2 θ̇ (t)] (2)
˙ 2
Jd Vd (t) = {T2 (t) − T1 (t)}rd − bd Vd (t) (3)
24 2
J1_eq θ̈ (t) = −l2 {T1 (t) + T2 (t)} − l θ (t) − b θ̇(t) (4)
0.078 1
where Ti is the variation in tension of the web in the i th
span, li_u is the upstream span length of the i th dancer, li_d is
the downstream span length of the i th dancer, A is the cross-
sectional area of the unstretched web, E is the elastic modulus
of the web, Vi is the variation in the tangential velocity of the
i th roll, vop is the operating tangential velocity of the roll, l1 is
the rod length from the hinge to cylinder, l2 is the rod length
from the hinge to dancer roll, θ is the angle of the dancer
arm, Jd is the moment of inertia of the dancer idle roll, Vd is
the variation in the tangential velocity of the dancer roll, rd is
the radius of the dancer roll, bd is the rotary bearing friction
constant of the dancer roll, b is the rotary bearing friction
constant of the hinge, and Ji_eq is the equivalent moment of
inertia of the dancer.
For the fast response of the dancer system, the mechanical
design of the dancer roll and arm is very important. The weight
of the dancer roll was reduced to have a low Jd and Ji_eq
by using aluminum (Al) materials instead of steel use stain-
less (SUS). Moreover, l1 and l2 were shortened to maintain
the previous ratio (0.5:1). The simulation result in Fig. 3(b)
indicates the variation in tension with the calculation time
based on the measured condition in Table II. Disturbance was
induced in T0 with a step input of 3 N at 10 s, and the
observed tension was T2 . The simulation result showed that
the variation in tension of Al is approximately three times
lesser than that of SUS, and the settling time improved by
approximately 2 s. The difference in variation in tension is not
large in the simulation, but the settling time of 2 s is significant
considering the microsecond control of the R2R system.
The coating zone was within the span of T4 after the
IF section, such that V3 was determined as the master drive
speed. Therefore, V3 was fixed to vop to attain a stable
coating velocity. Moreover, T4 is the most important parameter
the upstream span length. Therefore, the passive dancer must
accurately damp and regulate the variation in tension.
Finally, a linear active dancer is the main tension control
module of this developed system. In the section near the OF,
there are two operating modes: #1: L/C feedback to the linear
active dancer, and #2: L/C feedback to the OF motor. The
mode #2 logic is widely used in the R2R system, but we
implemented mode #1 logic and compared it to mode #2 logic.
A simple mathematical expression was derived to confirm the
dynamics of the linear active dancer, as shown in the following
[39]:
EA
T5 = · x (5)
l2_u
x = ω · p (6)
where x is the displacement of the dancer arm, and ω and p
are the angular velocity and pitch of the linear guider,
respectively. The variation in T5 was considered to follow
Hooke’s law. When T5 changed rapidly in a short time owing
to the movement of x of the linear dancer, which can be
determined using (6), the span length between the V4 and V5
rolls can be considered to be 0.6 m in length. The value
of p of the linear dancer was 10 μm, and when the input
parameter ω was 8.3 · 10−4 rad/s that occurred as a step value,
as shown in Fig. 3(c) (bottom graph). The smallest tension
variation control could be estimated to be 1 N, as shown in
Fig. 3(c) (top graph). The settling time will decrease when
the web velocity is increased. Tension control performances
below 3.3% could be theoretically achieved on the basis of
mode #2 (operating tension: 30 N).
In actuators, the gear box ratio of the active dancer and
OF is 1:10 and 1:60, respectively, which indicates that the
OF is more precise, as can be seen in Table I. In contrast,
the backlash of the active dancer was lower than that of the OF.
With regard to control architectures, as mentioned in Fig. 3,
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SEONG et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-PRECISION R2R SLOT-DIE COATING EQUIPMENT
Fig. 4. Experiment of linear active dancer system. (a) Photograph of linear
active dancer. (b) Acquired data of variation in tension for 600 s in the absence
and presence of linear active dancer control, and the box charts of the tension
values with linear active dancer (c) OFF and (d) ON.
two modes are controller-based and PI-control-based, but the
tension signal to the linear module is fed back as x output
through mode #1 and the tension signal to the OF motor is fed
back as V7 output through mode #2. In summary, the active
dancer changes the micrometer scale of the span length, as
shown in (5), and the OF changes the velocity of the web,
as shown in (1) and (2). For web tension control, velocity
control is general because it is presumed that the traction force
between the web and roller is perfect, but for a sudden small
change in velocity, slippage can occur. An advantage of the
active dancer is that tension control can be performed under
the condition of operating velocity. In that sense, the active
dancer can be applied for improving tension control.
D. Tension Control
Fig. 4 shows the experimental results for tension control in
the presence (mode #1) and absence (mode #2) of the active
linear dancer. Fig. 4(a) shows that the linear active dancer
system can also be called an accumulator (the purpose of an
accumulator is web accumulation). The operating tension was
set at 3 kgf, and T7 was measured at 2 m/min for 600 s in
mode #2 (first 300 s) and mode #1 (last 300 s), as shown
in Fig. 4(b). It is clearly shown that the variation in tension
5
Fig. 5. Evaluation of tension control of R2R system. (a) Detailed drawing
of feeding modules. (b) Closed-loop response of tension at L/C adjacent to
UW, IF, OF, and RW.
decreased when the linear active dancer was turned ON.
Fig. 4(c) and (d) presents the box plots of these acquired data.
The OF achieved tension control of approximately 2.66%.
After turning ON the linear active dancer, these values
decreased to a tension control accuracy of 1.81%.
The tension control of the developed system was evaluated
based on this control logic, as shown in Fig. 5. A–H in
Fig. 5(a) correspond to the UW, offset pivot guider, dancer,
L/C, IF, accumulator, OF, and RW, respectively. There are four
L/Cs [D in Fig. 5(a)] in the feeding module. These measure the
tension to enable monitoring. The data for T3 , T4 , T7 , and T8
were acquired and all exhibited good performance, as shown
in Fig. 5(b). The PET web is sensitive; it is known that the
PET substrate expands and shrinks when subjected to the high
temperature of the drying section [20]. To obtain good control
accuracy for the drying operation, the temperature of the FIR
dryer was set at 65 °C, and the tension was measured once
the dryer temperature had reached its set value.
vop and operating tension were set at 2 m/min and 3 kgf,
respectively, and measured by the L/C for 100 s. The tension
control accuracies of the four L/Cs were measured and found
to be 5.13% (UW, T3 , average: 2.94 kgf, standard devia-
tion: 0.094 kgf), 11.3% (IF, T4 , average: 3.21 kgf, standard
deviation: 0.129 kgf), 2.3% (OF, T7 , average: 3.011 kgf,
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPONENTS, PACKAGING AND MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Fig. 6. Temperature control module. (a) Drawing of drying equipment
and web path. (b) Inside of dryer. Inset: increase in time with temperature.
(c) J –V curves of the unit cell of OPV devices with different thermal
treatments: air, vacuum oven, and FIR heater for 1–10 min.
standard deviation: 0.059 kgf), and 5.06% (RW, T8 , average:
3.054 kgf, standard deviation: 0.098 kgf). The tension values
shifted toward the specific value because of the measure-
ment error; thus, the steady-state error was considered when
the accuracy of tension control was calculated. There are
many idler rollers between the L/Cs positioned between the
IF and OF; therefore, the values were different. The results
showed that the target tension control value was close to 5%,
except for IF, because this zone is set as an open tension zone
with the master speed drive located near the backup roller.
E. Temperature Control
The structured dryer system is shown in Fig. 6(a). Drying
and annealing of the applied coatings can be performed using
various types of heat sources, including hot air, FIR light,
near-infrared light, lasers, microwaves, and intense pulsed
light (IPL); IPL has recently been the subject of considerable
research [40]. For a preliminary study [41], we selected an FIR
lamp as the main heat source. Although it has been estab-
lished that IPL offers the most effective means of sintering
OPV devices [42], we also considered cost-effectiveness while
choosing the heat source.
The dryer system configuration consists of 99 FIR ceramic
heaters, 27 idler rollers, and 10 thermocouples, as shown
in Fig. 6(a) and (b). The use of multiple FIR heaters and
thermocouples helped in ensuring that the temperature was
maintained at a specific set value. The effective drying length
was set at 18 m to ensure that annealing could be successfully
performed. In addition, the inlet blower was modified in the
developed drying module. The blowers were powered through
an inverter so that their rotational speed could be set at any
value between 0 and 1750 Hz. The role of the blowers is
to exhaust harmful materials to the outside through filters
while maintaining the temperature inside the system. The
exhaust rate was set to minimize the vibration of the web.
Fig. 6(b) (inset) indicates the time taken for the temperature
to reach the target setting. The graph shows that the time
required to reach a given temperature is proportional to that
temperature. Furthermore, it was determined that the coating
process should not be started until the dryer has been allowed
to warm up for approximately 14 min to reach 80 °C.
The superiority of FIR annealing for OPV devices was
confirmed by a unit cell test. The OPV cell consisted of five
layers from the bottom to the top: indium tin oxide (ITO)
patterned glass, TiO2 , P3HT:PCBM, PEDOT:PSS, and Ag.
To obtain steady samples, each layer was printed in the same
conditions following the procedures of a previous study [41].
The printed OPV devices were treated by air, vacuum, and
FIR annealing with various times for the PEDOT:PSS and
Ag layers. The J –V (current density–voltage) curves of the
fabricated OPV devices were measured by a solar simulator
(IEC 904) under a 1-sun condition (AM1.5 100 mW/cm2 ),
as shown in Fig. 6(c). The air oven did not show good
efficiency compared to the other treatments. The vacuum
oven is comparable to the FIR annealing method, but a long
annealing time was needed to obtain an efficiency of 1.44%.
In the FIR cases, an efficiency of 1.46% was achieved by
annealing for only 3 min (1.46%) similar to the vacuum oven.
This result implies that the FIR annealing method can shorten
the treatment time for OPV devices to approximately 70% of
the vacuum oven method.
F. Cleanliness Control
Although the laboratory was itself a clean room, it was still
necessary to build a clean booth to prevent dust from adhering
to the coating surface. Clean booths were configured for the
UW-IF section and OF-RW section, as shown in Fig. 7.
The frame of the booth was formed from extruded
aluminum (A6NOIS-T5) and assembled tightly to minimize
leaks. The transparent panels were acrylic with a thickness
of 5 mm and were sealed. The clean booth was fitted with two
filters: a prefilter and a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA)
filter. The efficiency of the prefilter was 85% and that of the
HEPA filter was 99.97%. The filter fan unit was controlled
to exhaust any dust. The local cleanliness of the constructed
system was expected to be 1000 class in the designed
specifications.
G. Coating Control
A highly precise commercial slot-die coater (Naraenanotech
Co., Ltd.) was installed in the R2R system, as shown
in Fig. 8(a). The coater features a coating nozzle, gap control,
backup roll, liquid tank, a linear stage, and a means of
adjusting the angular rotation of the nozzle. Table III lists the
specifications of the slot-die coating module. The machining
accuracy of the slot-die is important because it must be
capable of controlling thicknesses at the submicrometer level.
Slot-die coating is a well-known R2R coating method that can
control the thickness of an applied coating by adjusting the
process conditions, such as the coating gap, coating velocity,
flow rate, and fluid characteristics (viscosity, surface tension,
and density) [43]. Fig. 8(b) (top) is a schematic of the coating
process, whose salient parameters are the coating velocity (V ),
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SEONG et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-PRECISION R2R SLOT-DIE COATING EQUIPMENT 7

TABLE III
S PECIFICATIONS OF THE S LOT-D IE C OATING M ODULE

Fig. 7. Constructed clean booth. (a) Clean booth containing unwinding,

in-feeding, and coating zone (#1) and out-feeding and rewinding zone (#2).
(b) Ceiling of clean booth. Fig. 8. (a) Slot-die coater and frame. (b) Schematic of slot-die coating
process (top) and calibration of pumping rate of PEIE and P3HT:PCBM
liquids (bottom).
flow rate ( fr ), strip width (w), number of strips (n), and wet
thickness (tw ). Kang et al. [44] and Krebs [25] proposed a
mathematical model to predict the thickness of the coated were performed using a range of liquids. Various combinations
layer. This can be expressed by the following: of coating parameters have been analyzed and optimized in
previous studies [28], [45]. Thus, the hardware of the coating
fr module should be precisely constructed from the viewpoint of
.
tw = (7)
nwV alignment and machining precision. Fig. 8(b) (bottom graph)
Based on the mathematical model, the significance of the shows the difference between the pump input value and
individual parameters can be evaluated. Multiple verifications the actual flow rates of P3HT:PCBM and polyethylenimine
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8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPONENTS, PACKAGING AND MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Fig. 9. Coating experiment and evaluation. (a) Change in thickness of AL and
comparison with viscocapillary and volume model with coating velocity (left)
and its roughness result. (b) Contour plot and optimized process conditions
of AL coated result. (c) Coating window of coating velocity and flow rate for
stable coating strip. (d) TEM image of an ETL (PEIE) layer.
ethoxylated (PEIE) liquids. For each liquid case, a flow rate
test was first performed to ensure precision of the discharge.
H. Velocity Control
Coating velocity is important because it influences ten-
sion and coating control, as mentioned in Section II-C.
In the tension models of (1) and (2), the variation in tangential
velocity is considered as the main parameter to be controlled
for a stable tension. Moreover, coating velocity is easily
modified with flow rate in the coating process for different
wet thicknesses. For the precise transportation of the web,
we selected high motor accuracy in our machine specifications,
as shown in Table I.
Although the motor quality is good, slippage between the
roller and web must be reexamined. In high-velocity web
motion, air could be entrained between the web and roller
and cause slippage. To check slippage in the system, the
tangential velocity of the web was measured. A rotary encoder
(ENC-1-1V-5, Autonics Co., Ltd.) was installed on the web
and roller, and acceleration from zero to the target velocity
was continuously acquired. The acceleration values from the
velocity of 0 to 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 m/min were obtained as
0.006275, 0.007805, 0.008, 0.007857, and 0.007818 m/s2 ,
respectively. This result has proved that slippage was not
critical in our operating ranges. However, it can be worse at
a high velocity of the web over 2 m/s (12 m/min) [32].
III. C OATING P ROCESS AND E VALUATION
OF C OATING P ERFORMANCE
A coating experiment was performed using two liquids,
as shown in Fig. 9. These were P3HT:PCBM and PEIE
represented by AL and ETL in the OPV device, respectively,
(Fig. 1). The weight percentage of the liquid determined
the dry thickness of the resulting coating [45]. P3HT:PCBM
(PH0148 and OS0266, 1-Material Co., Ltd.) was diluted in
1-chlorobenzene to 4.6 wt%, while PEIE (Sigma-Aldrich Co.,
Ltd.) was dissolved in 2-methoxyetahnol to 0.4 wt%. For
highly uniform coating, the ETL and AL materials were
examined by the wettability test. The contact angle of the
ITO-PET film was 70.90° before treatment; therefore, the
ITO-PET film was treated with O2 plasma. After the treatment,
it was reduced to 47°. Moreover, the AL materials easily
coated on the PEIE without the treatment process because it
has a low degree (approximately 16°) of nonpolar materials
(dimethyl-surfoxide).
The coating gap was set at 15 and 100 μm for the
ETL and AL, respectively, in order to obtain the target
thicknesses (20 and 100 nm). The coating thickness increased
in proportion to any increment in the coating gap [43]. The
coated wet layer consisted of five strips, each having a width
of 10 mm, which was dried by passing through an FIR dryer.
The coating velocity was increased from 4 to 7 m/min
and the flow rate was varied between 1.2 and 3.7 ml/min
for the AL coating case. Moreover, the AL was evaluated
in terms of its thickness and roughness [as measured using
an interferometer (NV-2000, Nanoscan Co., Ltd.)] based on
a measurement of the average and standard deviation for five
strips, as shown in Fig. 9(a). The thickness of the AL was
found to vary between 48.9 and 94.65 μm and increased in
proportion to the coating velocity. The volume model of (7)
showed similarity with the experimental result. However, there
was a gap between the estimation and experiment because (7)
does not consider the increment of capillary force in the high-
velocity coating. The viscocapillary model can be expressed as
H0
tmin = (8)
1 + 1.49Ca −2/3
where tmin is the minimum wet thickness, H0 is the coat-
ing gap, and Ca is the capillary number defined as μV /σ
(μ: viscosity, V : coating velocity, and σ : surface tension). The
viscocapillary model estimated the dried thickness to range
between 11 and 16 nm (μ: 3.7 mPa · s and σ : 32.99 mN/m).
There was a significant difference from the actual coating
result, but it is clear that the coating velocity is proportional
to the coating thickness [45].
The uniformity of coating thickness was found to vary
by 7.7%, 10.3%, 9.6%, and 23% for each velocity. The
lowest velocity produced a coating with the best uniformity.
Furthermore, the roughness (root mean square) also exhibited
the lowest value when the coating velocity was the lowest.
The obtained roughness values were 2.86, 3.88, 5.07, and
7.71 nm for each coating velocity, and all values are within
the limits of the target roughness. It is presumed that the
highest coating velocity could result in coating gap differences
(tremble of web) or tension disturbances [24].
We mapped a coating window for the AL experiment, as
shown in Fig. 9(b) and (c). From the contour plot of the
thickness values with different coating velocities and flow
rate values, we determined that a thicker layer of AL could
be obtained with a high coating velocity and low flow rate, as
shown in Fig. 9(b). Moreover, a thinner layer could be obtained
at a low coating velocity. This guideline can be applied to
experiments using the same materials [45]. Furthermore,
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
SEONG et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-PRECISION R2R SLOT-DIE COATING EQUIPMENT
Fig. 10. (a) Photograph of AL coating in FIR zone. (b) Rewound final
product on the glass. (c) Good-quality coated film with five strips.
the coating window for stable strip patterns is shown
in Fig. 9(c). No coating implies a very narrow coating or no
coating because of a low flow rate for the coating velocity.
On increasing the flow rate, there were one, two, or three
unstable coating strips, and then an appropriate combination
of the coating velocity and flow rate can result in a stable
strip 8–12 mm in width. In addition, a high flow rate resulted
in a very wide coating strip that looked like a full coating layer.
In the case of the ETL, the coating velocity was low;
therefore, only the smallest flow rate of 0.2 ml/min was
unstable. A thin layer of the ETL was required; therefore, in
this case, the coating was performed at a velocity of 1.2 m/min
and a flow rate of 0.5 ml/min for stable coating.
Fig. 9(d) shows a focused ion beam combined transmission
electron microscopy (TEM) image for the PEIE layer on the
PET-ITO substrate. The PEIE layer attains a target thickness
of 28.9 nm. However, note that it is difficult to measure
coatings having a thickness of less than 50 nm by using an
interferometer.
Fig. 10(a) shows the coating process of the AL after the ETL
coating. The coated film of PET-ITO, PEIE, and P3HT:PCBM
was obtained as a roll type, as shown in Fig. 10(b). The coated
layer showed excellent coat ability, as shown in Fig. 10(c).
A demonstrated coating product could not show the per-
formance of OPV devices because of the requirement of
other layers. However, it could be achieved in future research
following the optimization process demonstrated for the
ETL and AL.
9
IV. C ONCLUSION
A practical design process for high-precision R2R slot-die
coating equipment was developed to attain a given device
target. The equipment was designed to perform coating
with design guideline values for tension control, temperature
control, cleanliness control, and coating control based on
a mathematical simulation and an experiment. The tension
and velocity control performances (control accuracy), layer
thickness, layer roughness, and layer uniformity were set as
the main evaluation standards. Importantly, tension control was
based on the pendulum-type passive dancer and linear-type
active dancer. Moreover, coating performance was observed
with a mathematical model and was derived as a coating
window by comparison with the experimental result. The
equipment was constructed (assembled) to enable processing
with a high degree of manufacturing precision, with a fair
selection of components. The developed system was designed
based on a theoretical and an experimental approach that can
be utilized to construct an R2R coating system for the purpose
of product manufacturing. The constructed equipment could
be applied to many advanced products in addition to the OPV
modules considered in this paper. Moreover, the systemic
guidelines for construction and control will be extremely
useful to researchers in the field as well as to the industry.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper was written as part of Konkuk University’s
research support program for its faculty on sabbatical leave
in 2011.
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