A study of imprint and etching behavior on fused silica of a new tailored resist mr-NIL213FC for soft UV-NIL

Abstract

A new type of a specifically tailored resist for Soft Nanoimprint Lithography (Soft UV-NIL) namely mr-NIL213FC has been developed. It aims for a significant improvement of its etch-resistance with regard to underlying oxide substrates such as glass. This work demonstrates the first study of its imprint performance and etching behavior against fused silica wafers. First of all, the resist shows full compatibility with automated Soft UV-NIL using PDMS-based soft stamps and at ambient (oxygen containing) conditions for both step-and-repeat and full-wafer approaches. Moreover, the selectivity of the resist to the underlying fused silica substrate, in a high power and high etch rate condition, has reached to over 0.6, which is a significant step-up among most products in this context. The improved resistance of the resist facilitates direct etching processes for high resolution and high structure fidelity. Keywords: Soft UV NIL, Nanofabrication, PDMS stamp, Glass etching, High etching selectivity, New resist