A collaborative research group led by Professor Gyoujin Cho and Professor Inki Kim of Department of Biophysics at Sungkyunkwan University, in partnership with Professor Junsuk Rho of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at POSTECH, has developed a fully automated roll-to-roll manufacturing platform capable of producing large-area visible metalenses at a rate of 300 units per second, marking a major breakthrough in translating metasurface technology from the laboratory to real-world industrial deployment.
A new study published in Nature , entitled “300-unit-per-second roll-to-roll manufacturing of visible metalenses,” addresses long-standing technical barriers that have hindered the commercialization of metalenses.
Metalenses are flat, ultrathin optical components composed of two-dimensional arrays of subwavelength nanostructures that precisely control light, offering a compact and lightweight alternative to conventional bulky lenses. By engineering the phase, amplitude and polarization of light at the nanoscale, they enable advanced optical functions in an exceptionally thin form factor, making them a promising candidate for the next revolution in optical technology. However, despite their enormous potential, the industrial adoption of metalenses has been constrained by a major manufacturing challenge: how to produce high-performance devices over large areas, at high speed and low cost, while maintaining the uniformity and yield required for practical industrial applications.
To overcome this limitation, the research team first produced 12-inch silicon master stamp by replicating a single pattern originally fabricated by electron beam lithography through deep-ultraviolet ArF photolithography. The team then employed a custom-built roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography system that operates in a fully automated manner at the 12-inch scale and achieves feature resolution down to 80 nm with a remarkable imprinting speed of one 12-inch mould every 1.5 seconds equivalent to a lens throughput of 300 metalenses per second, each with a diameter of 1 cm. This throughput is approximately two orders of magnitude higher than that of conventional nanoimprint lithography systems. To enable scalable and low-cost manufacturing, a flexible polymer replica mould was developed by directly replicating a master stamp onto a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) backplane foil using an ultraviolet (UV)-curable resin. This approach eliminates the need for the conventional electroformed nickel shim - a major bottleneck in roll-to-roll manufacturing, thereby substantially reduces production cost and manufacturing time by allowing many flexible moulds to be rapidly produced from a single master wafer. The replicated metalenses are subsequently coated with a high-index titanium dioxide (TiO₂) layer via atomic layer deposition (ALD), a well-established and scalable industrial process, to further enhance optical performance.
For the first time, the team demonstrated the mass production of 200-metre-long metalens arrays with high yield and consistent functionality across a large area, validating the effectiveness of the roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography approach for the scalable manufacture of high-quality metasurfaces. This study represents a significant advance in the scalable and sustainable production of metalenses, paving the way for the commercialization of metaphotonic devices.
According to Professor Kim:
“Metasurfaces have long been seen as a powerful platform for next-generation optics, but scalable manufacturing has remained a major bottleneck. By demonstrating roll-to-roll production of visible metalenses at 300 units per second, we show that mass production is possible. The throughput can be scaled even further by increasing the size of the imprint rollers and optimizing the mould design. Moreover, if our roll-to-roll technology is also applied to mould manufacturing, the cost of each metalens could become almost negligible. We believe this work offers a compelling route for translating metasurface optics into everyday technologies.”
The team expects that the approach could support broader industrial efforts to integrate metasurface optics into next-generation imaging, display, sensing and consumer electronic devices.
Nature
300-unit-per-second roll-to-roll manufacturing of visible metalenses