A hybrid nano-imprinting lithography based on infrared pulsed laser heating

In this paper we present a novel method of nano-imprinting which adopts important features of conventional nano-imprinting lithography (NIL) and the newly developed laser-assisted direct imprinting (LADI) method. It utilizes an Nd-YAG pulsed laser of wavelength 1064 nm which can easily penetrate and also heat up a silicon mold which is pressed against a resist layer deposited on a substrate. The fast rising temperature in the silicon mold can momentarily melt the resist layer so that the mold is imprinting into the resist layer. After the pattern is transformed, standard nano-imprinting lithography processes can be applied to the substrate for nano-fabrication. This new method has several advantages over existing nano-imprinting methods mostly due to the fast heating-up of silicon mold by high intensity IR laser pulse and therefore has no thermal drifting problem. Both the theoretical modeling and experimental results of this novel IR-laser assisted imprinting method will be presented.