Resistless Fabrication of Nanoimprint Lithography (NIL) Stamps Using Nano-Stencil Lithography

In order to keep up with the advances in nano-fabrication, alternative, cost-efficient lithography techniques need to be implemented. Two of the most promising are nanoimprint lithography (NIL) and stencil lithography. We explore here the possibility of fabricating the stamp using stencil lithography, which has the potential for a cost reduction in some fabrication facilities. We show that the stamps reproduce the membrane aperture patterns within ±10 nm and we validate such stamps by using them to fabricate metallic nanowires down to 100 nm in size.

[1]  J. Brugger,et al.  Resistivity measurements of gold wires fabricated by stencil lithography on flexible polymer substrates , 2008 .

[2]  J. Brugger,et al.  Full-wafer fabrication by nanostencil lithography of micro/nanomechanical mass sensors monolithically integrated with CMOS , 2008, Nanotechnology.

[3]  S. Chou,et al.  Imprint Lithography with 25-Nanometer Resolution , 1996, Science.

[4]  J. Brugger,et al.  Compliant membranes improve resolution in full-wafer micro/nanostencil lithography. , 2012, Nanoscale.

[5]  J. Brugger,et al.  Reusability of nanostencils for the patterning of Aluminum nanostructures by selective wet etching , 2008 .

[6]  J. Bausells,et al.  Localized Ion Implantation Through Micro/Nanostencil Masks , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology.

[7]  A. Seabaugh,et al.  Characterization and control of unconfined lateral diffusion under stencil masks , 2007 .

[8]  P. Vettiger,et al.  All-stencil transistor fabrication on 3D silicon substrates , 2012 .

[9]  Marc A. F. van den Boogaart,et al.  Predicting mask distortion, clogging and pattern transfer for stencil lithography , 2007 .

[10]  C. Park,et al.  Reliable and Improved Nanoscale Stencil Lithography by Membrane Stabilization, Blurring, and Clogging Corrections , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology.

[11]  Katrin Sidler,et al.  Etching of sub-micrometer structures through Stencil , 2008 .

[12]  Takumi Sannomiya,et al.  Metallic nanodot arrays by stencil lithography for plasmonic biosensing applications. , 2011, ACS nano.

[13]  Takumi Sannomiya,et al.  High-resolution resistless nanopatterning on polymer and flexible substrates for plasmonic biosensing using stencil masks. , 2012, ACS nano.

[14]  J. Brugger,et al.  Analysis of the blurring in stencil lithography , 2009, Nanotechnology.

[15]  Daniel C. Ralph,et al.  Nanofabrication using a stencil mask , 1999 .

[16]  Veronica Savu,et al.  High throughput nanofabrication of silicon nanowire and carbon nanotube tips on AFM probes by stencil-deposited catalysts. , 2011, Nano letters.

[17]  Miko Elwenspoek,et al.  Resistless patterning of sub-micron structures by evaporation through nanostencils , 2000 .

[18]  G. Somorjai,et al.  Parallel fabrication of sub-50-nm uniformly sized nanoparticles by deposition through a patterned silicon nitride nanostencil. , 2005, Nano letters.

[19]  Julien Arcamone,et al.  Dry etching for the correction of gap-induced blurring and improved pattern resolution in nanostencil lithography , 2007 .