Ultrafast nanoimprint lithography

Both ultrafast thermal and photocurable nanoimprint lithography (NIL) are studied and high fidelity transfers of nanopatterns from molds to resists have been achieved. In ultrafast thermal NIL, we use a single excimer laser pulse to melt a NIL resist polymer and imprint it using a fused silica mold. The entire imprint process, from melting the polymer to completion of the imprint, takes less than 200 ns. This technique, termed laser assisted nanoimprint lithography (LAN), has patterned nanostructures in various polymer films with high fidelity over the entire mold area. In LAN, the short laser pulse is absorbed primarily by the resist and the laser energy is minute, hence substrate heating and distortion are negligible. In ultrafast photocurable NIL, a flash lamp (pulse width 94 μs) is used to crosslink photo curable resists over a 4 in. wafer with high uniformity by a single pulse. The significant reduction of the heating of the substrate and mold will greatly benefit overlay alignment.