Description
The local wetting control of film substrates using flexographic printing is investigated in order to enable the additive manufacturing of optical waveguides in a subsequent process step. Process-specific advantages are exploited in order to achieve increased performance of the optical structures. By conditioning film substrates, the achievable aspect ratio (waveguide height / waveguide width) can be raised significantly compared to the Aerosol Jet process without conditioning lines. Additionally, the functionalization of the flexographic printing plates is investigated. The focus here is on laser-based functionalization, with the emphasis on the introduction of microstructures. The flexibility of laser processing allows a flexographic printing form to be processed in such a way that it is perfectly matched to the requirement. This shows that in order to carry out successful printing, the printing form production, the printing form processing and the printing process must be suitably coordinated with each other.
