A soft-imprint technique for submicron structure fabrication via in situ polymerization

We have investigated a novel soft-imprint technique for the fabrication of submicron scale polymer structures that can be simply performed at room temperature by polymerization with an elastomeric polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mould. The proposed technique is a simple, cheap and reproducible method for the patterning of large areas, and that allows the transfer of polymer patterns at the submicron scale without high pressures. The PDMS mould is placed on a fluid mixture of prepolymer and monomer after a brief UV exposure, full polymerization follows, and then the mould is removed. SEM and AFM observations confirm that the submicron scale polymer structures are produced without any defect or distortion and with good pattern fidelity over a large area.