Seeking a cutting technology for thin glass (< 100 µm) as well as thin glass / polymer laminates.

Details of the Technology Call

Glass rolls with about 20 m length and a thickness of 50 -100 µm are laminated with an adhesive tape. These thin glass-adhesive tape laminates are used to build glass-glass-encapsulated OLEDs in a roll-to-roll process. The next step for commercialization is to separate the roll into single functional elements. The combination of thin glass film and adhesive tape would deliver a perfect whole-in-one solution for the encapsulation of water sensitive organic materials.
To keep the bendability, the cutting process has to be very accurate and the resulting glass edge free of defects.

Technical requirements

A proposed solution should have the following properties:

Must have:

• 1-pass inline Roll-to-roll integration possible
• Cutting speed > 5 m/min
• Circular scissions with radii ≥ 1 mm
• Cutting of several glass qualities (starting point: alkali containing and –free borosilicate glass)
• Resulting quality
  • Edge strength > 150 MPa
  • Target bending radius
  • No deformation, melting burrs or other thermal side effects
  • No chipping

Nice to have:

• Simultaneous cutting of glass and polymer

Possible solution areas

• Glass shaping
• Glass forming
• Apparell industry
• Laser-technology
• Jewelry industry
• Shape cutting industry

A combination of above possible solutions or other technologies is interesting.

Previously attempted solutions (discarded)

Several available technologies have been tested inhouse, but we are open to discuss and test technical advancements of those technologies.