Measurement of adhesive force between mold and photocurable resin in imprint technology

In order to reduce the strong adhesive force between the mold and photocurable resin in UV-curable imprint lithography, release coating materials of the quartz mold and easy to release photocurable resin were examined. Furthermore. measurement methods of release properties of the imprint mold and photocurable resin were established using, a tensile testing machine. The surface-treated slide-glass (SG) did not adhere to the resins and the adhesive forces were markedly reduced. For the release coating materials, the adhesive force for KP-801M was smaller than that for Aquaphobe CF. In the case of the photocurable resins, the adhesive force for PAK01 was smaller than that for TSR820. According to the measurement result of durability, Aquaphobe CF showed good durability compared with KP-801M using PAK01 as a photocurable resin. The fracture energies were measured by the double cantilever beam method, and the resultant values were 3.64 N/m and 2.77 N/m, respectively, for no-treatment SG and the surface-treated SG with Aquaphobe CF using PAK01 photocurable resin. The rectangular patterns of 1 mum x 2 mum were imprinted with good fidelity without ripping on the PAK01 resin using a surface-treated quart/mold with Aquaphobe Cl, under 0.2 MPa pressure and 10 J/cm(2) UV dose.