Investigation on laser assisted direct imprinting parameters for fabricating micro- and nano-structures

This paper experimentally investigates the dominant parameters in performing laser assisted direct imprinting (LADI) process, which utilizes quartz molds, pulsed laser heating, and contact pressure for direct fabricating micro/nano-structures on a silicon substrate. Based on pulsed laser heating, liquid film squeezing, and elastodynamic theories, a unified theory has been successfully developed before which can quantitatively explains the fundamental mechanism of LADI and predicts the correlations between the final imprinting depth and several important parameters including laser fluence, contact pressure, and feature size. To verify this theory, a series of LADI experiments have been carried out in this work. Experimental results, in their general trends, are in agreement with the theoretical predictions and therefore supporting the validity of the modeling. It also shows that further modifications on the theoretical model are needed based on the experimental results. Physical implications and potential applications of this modeling will be addressed.