Controlling Peeling Front Geometry in a Roll-to-Roll Thin Film Transfer Process
Abstract Mechanical peeling is becoming an important manufacturing process in areas such as transfer printing and two-dimensional (2D) materials fabrication. Existing research has demonstrated the potential of successful peeling in small-scale by hand or with a robotic system. However, to scale up the manufacturing process, a roll-to-roll continuous system is needed. It is generally understood that the peeling front characteristics, including peeling angles, speed, and tension, are critical to the quality of the peeling process. In a roll-to-roll setting, controlling these characteristics becomes challenging since there are fewer degrees of freedom in the control design, and the complex relationship among the process parameters. In this study, a system model of a roll-to-roll peeling process is developed and a feedback controller to maintain the desired system performance is proposed. The control method is demonstrated with both numerical simulation and experimental results. It is shown that with the proposed control scheme, desired peeling front geometry can be achieved.