A sandwiched flexible polymer mold for control of particle-induced defects in nanoimprint lithography

Particle related defects are one of the key concerns for nanoimprint lithography, since the particle can amplify the defect to become much larger than the particle itself. We developed a flexible tri-layer mold for control of particle-induced defects. The mold was composed of a PDMS cushion layer sandwiched between a rigid imprint pattern layer and a plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) backplane. The PET foil was used as the backplane of the mold to protect the sticky PDMS surface. The PDMS as a cushion layer could locally deform to conform the shape of substrate due to its high elasticity. The multifunctional epoxysiloxane was used for the formation of an imprint layer because of its insensitivity toward oxygen during curing, high transparency, excellent mechanical strength and high resistance to oxygen plasma after cross-linking. Nanostructures with different geometries and sizes were faithfully duplicated by this mold through a UV-curing imprint process. The particle-induced defectivity was dramatically improved by the deformation of the PDMS cushion layer with a slight external pressure. 500 nm pitch grating structures were successfully imprinted on a microposts array surface, both the top and the intervening bottom portions between the microposts.