Nanoimprint Lithography: a Promising Candidate for Next-generation Lithography

Due to its inherent simplicity and low cost, the popularity of nanoimprint lithography is rising, and is positioned to succeed EUV as the most popular choice for next-generation lithography. This paper presents a homemade nanoimprint lithography prototype tool with a high precision alignment system, which adopts both macro and micro actuators to achieve coarse and fine alignment. Linear motors with 300 mm travel range and 0.1 mu m step resolution, and piezoelectric translators with 50 mu m travel range and 0.1 nm step resolution are used as macro and micro actuators, respectively. Imprint of 80nm width gratings with a 250 nm pitch is taken as an example to depict the process of NIL. High resolution and fine fidelity of the imprinted results demonstrate NIL's promising candidate for next-generation lithography, and potential applications in manufacturing integrated circuits, optical, chemical, and biological nanostructures or micro-devices.