Reverse nanoimprint lithography for fabrication of nanostructures

Abstract

We investigate the applicability of reverse nanoimprint lithography (RNIL) to fabricate nanostructures. In this method, a thermal ultra-violet (UV) resist is first spin-coated onto a daughter mold directly and then the UV resist is transferred onto the desired surface by a UV-imprinting process at a very low temperature and low pressure. Discrete-track recording media at 50-nm track pitch were fabricated. The images from the scanning electron microscope showed that RNIL is capable of fabricating uniform patterns of nano-scale structures. Several advantages of RNIL over the existing methods are described, including the ease of using low molding pressure and temperature, the speed of imprinting, and the thinner residual layer. Copyright © 2012 American Scientific Publishers.