China
1041 movable clay type was first invented in China.
1436 Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with replaceable wooden or
metal letters.
1438, Gutenberg began a business arrangement with Andreas Dritzehn, who funded
his experiments in printing.
1440 Gutenberg completes the first press.
1450, Gutenberg began a second arrangement with German businessman
Johannes Fust. Fust lent Gutenberg the money to start a printing business and build
a large Gutenberg Press, their printing projects included the now famous Gutenberg
Bible.
1452, Johann Guttenberg's Bible was published becoming the first book to be
published in volume. Fust lent Gutenberg a further 800 guilders in return for a share
in the enterprise.
1455 Fust took Gutenberg to court, winning back the sum total of the two loans plus
interest. Soon afterwards Gutenberg typeset and printed 200 bibles, a painstaking
process using a range of methods. This last lawsuit by Fust crippled Gutenberg as it
transferred ownership of Gutenberg's printing press to Fust, who then continued to
print using the press. So ends the first venture capital investment in imprint !!
1959 Richard Feynman delivered a now famous lecture, "There is Plenty of Room at
the Bottom." He stimulated his audience with the expectation of exciting new
discoveries if one could fabricate materials and devices at the atomic/molecular
scale. He even discussed the creation and mold-based replication of nanoscale
features "We would just need to press the same metal plate again into plastic and
we would have another copy."
1974 Stephen Benton invented, and Michael Foster developed, a process for mass
production of holograms using a thermal embossing technique.
1979 Embossing of holograms is brought to commercial viability by Steve McGrew ,
holographic information is transferred from light sensitive glass plates to nickel
embossing shims. The holographic images are "printed" by stamping the
interference pattern onto plastic. The resulting hologram can be duplicated millions
of times for a few cents apiece.
1983 MasterCard International, Inc. became the first to use hologram technology in
bank card security.
1986 "nanotechnology" was first coined by K. Eric Drexler in 1986 in the book
Engines of Creation.
1987 American Bank Note Holographics embossed large area holograms onto a
plastic roll and transferred them to a 30-inch wide roll of special aluminum foil.
These holograms made the front cover of National Geographic.
1988, Austria produced the 5000 Schilling banknote (Mozart), which is the first foil
application (Kinegram®) to a paper bank note in the history of bank note printing.
1995 Stephen Chou at U of MIchigan publishes first thermal nanoimprint results
showing resolution down to less than 200 nm (Chou 1995).
1996 A group at Phillips publish first UV imprint results for making DVD's (Haisma
1996). Also Whiteside's group at Harvard publish molecular transfer printing or
"micro contact printing" (Xia 1996)
1997 Mike Gale at the Paul Sheer Institute describes using replication techniques for
optical elements (Gale 1997).
1999 The Willson and Shreenvasan groups at U Texas publish first drop dispense
UV imprint and the first bilayer imprint process suitable for patterning device wafers
(Colburn 1999).
2000 Kurz group publish first results for spin on UV nanoimprint patterning (Bender
2000).
2002 U Michigan group publish first example of transfer imprint from coated molds.
(Huang 2002)
2004 U Michigan group show combined UV imaging and imprint. (Cheng 2004)
NEXT
For more source information on each item go to References
Sources on Gutenberg - http://njnj.essortment.com/printingpressg_runq.htm and
http://inventors.aboutcom/library/inventors/blJohannesGutenberg.htm
Source on banknotes - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote
Source on early holograms - http://www.holophile.com/history.htm
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