Air Cushion Press for Excellent Uniformity, High Yield, and Fast Nanoimprint Across a 100 mm Field

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 6; no. 11; pp. 2438 - 2441
• Main Authors: Gao, He, Tan, Hua, Zhang, Wei, Morton, Keith, Chou, Stephen Y
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 01.11.2006
• Subjects: Air Pressure; Applied sciences; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Materials Testing; Microelectronic fabrication (materials and surfaces technology); Nanostructures - chemistry; Nanotechnology - methods; Particle Size; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Surface Properties; Time Factors; Microelectronic fabrication; Lithography; Imprinting; Nanoimprint lithography; Topology; Damaging; Nanoimprint
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl0615118

Imprint pressure uniformity is crucial to the pattern uniformity and yield of nanoimprint lithography (NIL) and, hence, its applications. We studied a novel imprint method, air cushion press (ACP), in which the mold and substrate are pressed against each other by gas pressure rather than solid plates, and compared it with a common method, solid parallel-plate press (SPP). We found that (a) under normal imprinting conditions the measured pressure distribution across a 100-mm-diameter single imprint field in ACP is nearly an order of magnitude more uniform; (b) ACP is immune to any dust and topology variations on the backside of the mold or substrate; (c) when a dust particle is between the mold and substrate, ACP reduces the damage area by orders of magnitude; (d) ACP causes much less mold damage because of significantly less lateral shift between the mold and substrate; and (e) ACP has much smaller thermal mass and therefore significantly faster speed for thermal imprinting.