Analysis of the temperature distribution during embossing of diffractive optical elements by numerical simulation

Hot embossing is a promising technology which can be integrated in a process chain for cost effective production of planar lighting optics. Polyamide polymer material was selected in order to fulfil the requirements of the process: embossing, conductive coating process followed by the electro deposition and removal of the substrate to produce the final master. However, it has been further optimised in order to increase the thermal conductivity and improve the reliability of the process. Finite Element Modelling has been performed in order to analyse thermal features of embossing step as a function of materials and process parameters.