Optical Film for LED with Triangular-Pyramidal Array Using Size-Reducible Embossing Method

This study presents a modified hot-embossing process to fabricate micro-triangular-pyramidal array (MTPA). First, a tungsten (W) steel mold (as the first mold) is manufactured by precision machining including optical projection grinding, lapping, and polishing processes. The dimension of a triangular pyramid with acute angle of 85° on the W-steel mold is about 300 μm in width and 139 μm in height. The pitch between two triangular-pyramidal tips is about 170 μm. Then, only the portion of the tip area of the triangular-pyramidal patterns is transferred on bulk metallic glass (BMG, Mg₅₈Cu ₃₁Y₁₁) using this modified multi-step hot-embossing method to reduce the pattern size. With a position-adjustable mechanism, size-reduced concaved-shaped MTPA can be selectively formed, used as the secondary mold. In this way, not only can the size of triangular-pyramidal patterns on W-steel mold be reduced down on BMG, but also the tool arc between each triangular-pyramid on W-steel mold caused by machine tool can be eliminated. This is based on the fact that amorphous glass alloys contain no dislocation that can be responsible for yielding in crystalline materials. Thus, BMG is expected to be strong and hard enough to be used as a mold material. Then the secondary mold is used to emboss convex-shaped MTPA on PolymethylMethacrylate (PMMA) optical film. Experiments with different embossing times and embossing pressures are conducted and discussed. Large-sized triangular-pyramidal array on the W-steel mold has been successfully and selectively miniaturized on BMG, and then transferred on PMMA. Finally, this optical film of PMMA with MTPA is packaged on light-emitting diode (LED) to improve its lighting uniformity and luminance. In comparison with commercial 3M^™ optical film (3M^™ Vikuiti^™ TBEF2-T-65i), the film with MTPA shows a good optical performance.