METHOD OF CONTROLLING SURFACE ROUGHNESS OF A FLEXOGRAPHIC PRINTING PLATE

摘要

A method of controlling surface roughness of a flexographic printing element during thermal processing. The printing blank comprises at least one photocurable layer on a support layer, the at least one photocurable layer comprising: (1) a binder comprising styrene-butadiene-styrene; (2) at least one fast curing monomer; (3) at least one slow curing monomer; and (4) a photoinitiator. The printing blank is selectively imagewise exposing the printing plate blank to actinic radiation from the top of the printing element blank to selectively crosslink and cure portions of the at least one photocurable layer and then thermally processed to remove uncured portions of the at least one photocurable layer, thereby revealing the relief image in the at least one photocurable layer. Surface roughness of the relief image printing element after thermal processing is controlled to less than about 1,000 nm.