Dual metallic pattern transfer based on metal-film contact imprinting lithography

This paper reports a novel pattern transfer method which can transfer two patterned metal films from one single mold to two separate polymer substrates. The first metallic film is defined by the top convex surface of a silicon mold and is transferred to a polymer substrate directly from roller-assisted contact printing and infrared heating. The second metallic film, which is defined by the bottom concave surface of the same silicon mold, is transferred to another polymer substrate through the mechanism of UV imprinting and curing processes. This new method not only can most efficiently utilize the metal films deposited on a mold but also can save the effort in mold cleaning for reusing the mold for continuous printing processes. Furthermore, since the two metallic patterns are highly complementary to each other all over the entire patterned area, new and important applications can be applied. A number of experiments have been carried out, and the feasibility of this new lithography approach is confirmed.