Influence of PEN thermal properties on flexible film patterned by nanoimprint lithography

Nanoimprint lithographies (NIL) are very promising for NIL applications on flexible plastic films. In this paper we present some studies and developments of the imprint of polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) films. Different NIL processes are developed successfully; they correspond to the imprint of different chemical phases of the material: semicrystalline, amorphous, and melt. The thermal properties of the film are analyzed, and related to imprint results, which demonstrate that high reproducibility and uniformity are obtained. Moreover, the imprint of such flexible films is much more promising since it avoids NIL limitations commonly observed on semiconductor substrates. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.