title: Air cushion press for excellent uniformity, high yield, and fast nanoimprint across a 100 mm field.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Nanostructure Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA.
authors.forename: He
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Morton
authors.forename: Stephen Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Chou
mesh_terms: D000399:Air Pressure; D008422:Materials Testing; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D010316:Particle Size; D013499:Surface Properties; D013997:Time Factors