Direct metal imprinting lithography based on pulsed laser heating

This paper reports a novel contact printing method which can transfer patterned metallic films directly from a mold to a substrate, based on applied contact pressure and infrared pulse laser heating. Experiments have been carried out using a 1064 nm pulsed Nd:YAG laser to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method. Chromium (Cr) films of 70 nm thickness with both array-dot patterns and linear grating patterns of typically 500 nm feature sizes are successfully transferred. The transferred Cr patterns can serve as an etching mask for subsequent etching on the substrate. Potentials of applying this method for nano-patterning and nano-fabrication are addressed.