Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Schift, Helmut

Titel

Nanoimprint lithography: An old story in modern times? A review

Ist Teil von

• Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B: Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures, 2008-03, Vol.26 (2), p.458-480

Ort / Verlag

American Vacuum Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2008

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

American Institute of Physics (AIP) Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a high throughput, high-resolution parallel patterning method in which a surface pattern of a stamp is replicated into a material by mechanical contact and three dimensional material displacement. This can be done by shaping a liquid followed by a curing process for hardening, by variation of the thermomechanical properties of a film by heating and cooling, or by any other kind of shaping process using the difference in hardness of a mold and a moldable material. The local thickness contrast of the resulting thin molded film can be used as a means to pattern an underlying substrate on wafer level by standard pattern transfer methods, but also directly in applications where a bulk modified functional layer is needed. Therefore it is mainly aimed toward fields in which electron beam and high-end photolithography are costly and do not provide sufficient resolution at reasonable throughput. The aim of this review is to play between two poles: the need to establish standard processes and tools for research and industry, and the issues that make NIL a scientific endeavor. It is not the author’s intention to duplicate the content of the reviews already published, but to look on the NIL process as a whole. The author will also address some issues, which are not covered by the other reviews, e.g., the origin of NIL and the misconceptions, which sometimes dominate the debate about problems of NIL, and guide the reader to issues, which are often forgotten or overlooked.