Electroforming is an additive manufacturing process where metal is grown atom by atom onto a conductive-coated substrate. Winovus use electroforming technology to manufacture nanoscale-patterned Nickel molds.

First, we create a master mold with the required pattern through photolithography. After that, we sputtered a conductive thin-film Nickel layer onto the structured photoresist wafer(master mold). The next step is to replicate the Nickel mold. Through electroforming, homogeneous micro and nano-scale Nickel layers are formed and grow on the master mold. The electroformed Nickel mold will have a mirror image of the master mold.

The patterned Nickel mold is demolded and used for nanoimprinting and nanoinjection molding. The Nickel mold’s pattern and structures are transferred to the imprinted substrate.

Electroforming’s scalability and reproducibility allow multiple nickel molds to be replicated efficiently. These nickel molds are used for high-volume nanoimprinting. Nanoimprinting has a cost advantage, as it can reproduce nano-scale patterns on the substrate without requiring complex photolithography equipment.