Nanoimprint Lithography: a Promising Candidate for Next-generation Lithography

摘要

Due to its inherent simplicity and low cost, the popularity of nanoimprint lithography is rising, and is positioned to succeed EUV as the most popular choice for next-generation lithography. This paper presents a homemade nanoimprint lithography prototype tool with a high precision alignment system, which adopts both macro and micro actuators to achieve coarse and fine alignment. Linear motors with 300 mm travel range and 0.1μm step resolution, and piezoelectric translators with 50μm travel range and 0.1 nm step resolution are used as macro and micro actuators, respectively. Imprint of 80nm width gratings with a 250 nm pitch is taken as an example to depict the process of NIL. High resolution and fine fidelity of the imprinted results demonstrate NIL's promising candidate for next-generation lithography, and potential applications in manufacturing integrated circuits, optical, chemical, and biological nanostructures or micro-devices.