Comparative Investigation of Nano transfer Techniques for Low-cost, High-throughput metal Patterning

摘要

We present our investigation of various nanotransfer printing techniques for the reliable-large area sub-micron metal patterning. In this study, both subtractive and additive nanotransfer printing techniques have been experimented with and the merits and drawbacks of each of these techniques have been elucidated. For all of the approaches investigated, the end goal of each of them was to achieve a reliable and reproducible sub-micron patterns of metal thin films while minimally affecting the surface microstructure and the surface energy of the underlying silicon substrate. Compact discs (CDs) with their inherent sub-micron grating features were utilized as our master mold in our studies and Polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) was used as our replica molded elastomeric stamp that facilitated the nanotransfer printing process. Based on our experimental observations, recommendations are made as to what are the critical processing conditions that one needs to adhere to in order to obtain reliable pattern transfer.