Slot Die Coating

Machines and Equipment

FOM Technologies provides high-quality state-of-the-art slot-die coating machines produced in Scandinavia. Our cutting edge equipment enables researchers, scientists and professionals, to discover, develop and commercialise new functional materials for a cleaner and more sustainable world. We strive to ensure that our products always are innovative, reliable and cost-effective.

Roll-Based

Entry Level - FOM NanoRC

- Revolutionary portable slot-die coating machine.
- Price-efficient.
- High-quality industrial components.
- Build-in drying system.
- Maintenance/service free.
- Super cost-efficient research.
- Portable, compact in size, and easy to move around.

Ease to use
The FOM nanoRC is a lightweight, cost-efficient, easy to use, precision instrument for testing slot-die coating of solution-processable material onto flexible substrates.

Replacing spin coating
Based on many years of research in functional organic materials, including feedback from our clients worldwide, the FOM nanoRC has been designed to mimic the coating process of large-scale roll-to-roll machines. The FOM nanoRC enables our clients to produce hundreds of highly complex samples in a matter of hours that can be reproduced at larger scales while using only a fraction of the material required for the same output produced by a spin coater.

Cost-efficient
It provides reliable direct proof of scalability of any coatings conducted but without the high material consumption and associated costs or upstart time, making the FOM nanoRC a much more cost-efficient and reliable tool than current alternatives.

Intermediate Level - FOM arcRC

- Multiple device processing
- Easy material film forming testing
- Material roll-to-roll compatibility screening
- Hands-on research experience
- Process development tool for solution-processable materials
- Minimal material consumption
- Easy alignment of multiple subsequent layers
- The slot-die head is simple to assemble, disassemble, and clean

Compact lab-scale slot-die coating system

Originally designed for OPV and LEC research, the FOM arcRC is ideal for researchers who wish to work with flexible substrates or scale-up from spin coating.

Solution processing
The FOM arcRC allows testing the solution processing of materials with respect to the production of multiple devices, film-forming, and roll-to-toll compatibility. It provides hands-on research coating. Currently, the FOM arcRC is used for perovskite PV, OPV, OLEDs, thin-film sensors, and functional material technologies in general where solution processing is applicable.

Low materials consumption – Easy operation
The FOM arcRC design and small slot-die head volume facilitate much lower materials consumption compared to larger systems. It is the ideal starting point for device processing development. Due to its ability to process numerous devices, the FOM arcRC enables the testing of material film-forming properties or device architecture printability in a fraction of the time compared to spin coating.

Advanced Level - FOM moduloR2C

- Modular sub-units (each W: 0,8 m, D: 1.1 m, H: 1,6 m, typically 5+
- 13”/22” (350/650 mm) industry-standard web width
- Pre-treatment with web cleaning. Contact or contactless.
- Pre-treatment with either Corona or plasma unit.
- Flexographic and gravur printing stations, servo-driven with register control and slow-run function
- Multiple Full-width or stripe-pattern slot-die coating head with automatic registration system
- Vertical or horizontal double pass hot air and IR combination oven (2 meter drying in 1 meter oven) Up to 9m drying tunnel on 2 meter footprint.

Designed for experimental research
The FOM moduloR2C addresses the challenges associated with roll-to-roll equipment in R&D environments. Industrial roll-to-roll equipment often lacks the necessary freedom to experiment, adapt and data collect as is common in research.

Easy operation
To accommodate the flow of the research process the FOM moduloR2C provides a flexible system that allows facile experimental set-up, data collection, and operation.

Modular built
The modular-built FOM moduloR2C is fitted with all-around web access for easy maintenance and constant monitoring of the printed web. Furthermore, the FOM moduloR2C enables custom configuration and positioning of the coating, printing, and drying units ideal for R&D. Upon request, the FOM moduloR2C is Atex-compatible with certification.

Digital control and data collection
The coater is based on a digitally controlled platform and provides process control and complete process data logging with export functions to enable researchers to analyze this data.

Data management
Automated documentation is key to handle large data volumes. The complete coating conditions are automatically logged by the control software and can also be printed alongside the coated area by a synchronized barcode printer/reader.

Coating & printing methods
The FOM moduloR2C facilitates the integration of multiple coating and printing methods into the machine frame, for example, slot-die coating and flexographic, inkjet, or rotary screen printing. In principle, any deposition method can be integrated. Designed to handle a wide range of substrates it is currently running with carbon fiber tows, multiple plastics, paper, metal foils, and flexible glass.

Software
The integrated, extensive, and self-diagnostic monitoring system with Ethernet access provides easy service support and offers remote service as well as maintenance supervision.

Inbuilt industrial reconfiguration
The FOM moduloR2C is capable of industrial production speed. Based on a new PLC platform the machine is Industry 4.0 ready. This allows facile reconfiguration for industrial production once your research is ready for technology transfer to a pilot or commercial phase.

Sheet-Based 

Intermediate Level - FOM vectorSC

- Slot-die coating and drying in a single compact and versatile system
- Substrates up to 300×200 mm (A4-sized)
- Coating stripe widths from 1 to 100 mm, stripe lengths up to 300mm
- Coating speeds up to 5 m/min
- Precise control of all coating parameters – pump rate, coating speed, coating gap, and drying temperature
- Precision, reliable coating capability designed for R&D

Robust slot-die sheet coating system
The system was designed for fast and easy coating of functional materials in laboratories working to develop novel materials, test device structures, and process devices for performance testing. It is intended for solution-processed thin-film coatings of functional materials, for example, related to solar (OPV, perovskites, CIGS), lighting, sensing, and energy storage applications.

Step up from spin coating
The coater is the appropriate next step from spin coating towards medium-scale processing where rigid substrates are required. It offers a compact setup easily positionable in a fume hood. The supplied syringe pump and specially designed slot-die heads allow you to precisely control your wet-film thickness and keep material consumption to a minimum.

Simple handling and alignment
Both flexible and rigid substrates up to 300×200 mm can be freely positioned on the sample holder and secured by activating the vacuum suction. The across-coating registration of subsequent layers is easily set by the adjustment of the lateral position of the slot-die head. Together with high accuracy metapor composite heated chuck, this provides robust, flexible, and repeatable construction of your device architecture.

Advanced Level - FOM alphaSC

- Multiple options are available to adapt the system to the need of the customer:
- Slot-die distance position sensor
- HD video camera for monitoring of coating
- Drying options (IR, UV, hot air, Nitrogen flush air knife)
- Large vacuum chuck area from A4 and up.
- Slot-die is standard made from stainless steel. Other materials and alloys available (glass, Tungsten, titanium)
- Slot-die of metals can be coated with corrosion-resistant material Tantaline
- Heated slot-dies range from ambient to 80 degrees celsius
- Temperature controlled syringe pump
- Additional print steps Inkjet, Micro gravure, Blade/bar/comma coater

Design
Comprehensive user interface allows experimental freedom in the formulation of coating recipes. Integration of primary coating elements allows for high reproducibility between each coating run and high comparability between coated devices as well as optimal production batch quality. The slot-die bridge is built with attention to precision mounting and easy positioning of slot-die head over substrate mounts on a rigid and vibration damping base. The vacuum chuck travels on a precision rail system and in combination with the attention to detail this system provides a versatile and robust tool for upscaling.

Mechanics
The system comes with a choice of manual or automatic positioning of the slot-die and manual or the motorized programmed height and side shift adjustment with a resolution of 1µm. Coating speed between 0.05 to 5.0 m/min (step-less). Parallelism setting and slot-die lip straightness <1% provides precise material deposition. Cross and along with web positioning to <100µm. slot-die height (the coating gap) allows repeatable mounting providing repeatable batch processing from day-to-day. Drying – Metapor (TM) Vacuum chuck with a size range of A4 and up. Flatness from better than 20µm. Heating to 150°C, uniform across the surface to <1°C.

Easy to repetition and user recipes
The system facilitates the easy execution of repeated precision coatings in a controllable, easily predictable manner, giving the researcher an insight into the variables of the coating process.

Industrial Level - FOM pontemSC

- Precision sheet coating machine made from high precision, certified industrial components
- Granite base for rigidity and vibration damping
- Vacuum chuck flatness better than 5 µm with sheet feeding system
- Custom width slot-die coating heads up to 650 mm width
- Motorized, programmable height gap adjustment with a resolution of 1 µm
- Motorized, programmable coating offset adjustment with a resolution of 1 µm
- Motorized vacuum chuck movement with linear servo and drive amplifier
- Synchronised material syringe pump – (Option: multiple syringe pumps may be controlled simultaneously)

High precision automated S2S coating system
The FOM pontumSC provides an automated slot-die sheet coating system for high-end applications requiring high precision control of coating in repeated sheetfed steps.

Fully integrated system control
The FOM pontumSC comes with a fully integrated system control of the slot-die head, pumps, and substrate stage movement. XY-stages allow for precise slot-die head and substrate positioning, while the Z-stage is optimized for ultra-smooth coating motion. An inline sheet feeding system allows for multiple consecutive coatings.

Easy repetition and use of recipes
The system facilitates the easy execution of repeated precision coatings in a controllable, easily predictable manner, giving a high yield in each production run.

FOM industrial S2S coating capabilities
The FOM Industrial S2S coater is a high-end sheet coater for precision slot-die coating. It services the demand for industrial-grade repeatability and accuracy through a fully-automated slot-die sheet coating system with an automated sheet feeding system, controlled drying, and recipe control software that sensures high precision control of coating and exact repeatability between devices. Simply execute and repeat for multiple layers or samples again and again. Designed for rigid substrates of areas of up to 1m x 650mm coater area the FOM pontumSC can handle most pilot-scale large area printed electronics ambitions with its high precision automated coating system.