Product Fingerprints for the Evaluation of Tool/Polymer Replication Quality in Injection Molding at the Micro/Nano Scale

Replication processes for the manufacturing of micro/nano-structured components are characterized by a certain degree of precision and accuracy. The transcription loss, or replication fidelity, defines the geometrical and dimensional correspondence of micro/nano-structure from metal tool inserts into plastic patterned products. The employment of a vast spectrum of micro/nano-structured geometries calls for methodologies that can be used for the estimation of replication fidelity. This study presents a number of product fingerprints, which propose multiple ways to characterize micro/nano structures in replication technologies. Replication fidelity yielded values above 80% and up to 96% depending on the considered product fingerprints and their definition. Thereafter, a correlation of the product fingerprint with the process parameters was found to optimize the replication process. Measurement uncertainty accompanies the analysis of the product fingerprints, enabling a standardized, robust, and quantitative methodology for process learning, modeling, and optimization.