Adhesion between template materials and UV-cured nanoimprint resists

The origins of defects in lithographic stencils fabricated by the UV-cure nanoimprint technique include fundamental surface interactions between template and resist in addition to the presence of particles and contaminants. Repeated, molecularly clean separations of the template from the newly cured resist is a requirement, yet rather little is understood about the separation process or underlying interfacial physics and chemistry. We have investigated the chemical and physical interactions of several model acrylate nanoimprint resist formulations cured in contact with clean and release-treated quartz surfaces, then separated from them. The results show that fracture energies are resist formulation-dependent, that the resist-release layer systems studied are not chemically stable and that release process is more complex than simple fracture at a glass-organic interface.