Soft nanoimprint lithography

We developed a UV assisted soft nanoimprint lithography (UV-SNIL) that can be applied for the reproduction of nanometer features over large areas. Based on a simple argument deduced from the Navier-Stokes equation, we suggest several solutions to enhance the imprinting process ability. One of the solutions is to use tri-layer soft stamps, which consists of a rigid carrier, a low Young's module buffer and a top layer supporting nanostructure patterns to be replicated. Typically, the buffer and the top layer are made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) of 5 mm thickness and polymethylmetacrylate (PMMA) of 10-50 mu m thickness respectively. Patterning of the stamp top layer can be done in three different ways, i.e., spin coating, nano-compression and direct writing, all resulting in 100 run features over a large wafer area. Another solution is to use a bilayer resist system for which imprinting is performed on the top layer while the final pattern is obtained by transfer-ring the top layer image into the bottom layer by reactive ion etching. Comparing to other imprint techniques, UV-SNIL works at room temperature and low pressure, which is applicable for a wafer-scale replication at high throughput. For the research purpose, we also demonstrate nanostructure fabrication by lift-off techniques.