• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.76-81
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• 2008

Nanoimprint lithography(NIL) is an emerging technology enabling cost-effective and high-throughput nanofabrication. Among NILs, significant efforts from both academia and industry have been put in UV NIL research and development because of its ability to pattern at room temperature and at low pressure. In UV NIL, there may be in-line set-up error of the stamp and the substrate. To compensate this error, the dummy blocks are put on the stamp and pressurized uniformly. Contact problems between the stamp and the photoresist layer on the substrate are often happened, which results in the non-uniform residual layer In this paper, the pressurization method on the dummy block is investigated by the finite element method. A new method is recommended and evaluated far the uniform stamp deformation.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2007

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is an emerging technology enabling cost-effective and high-throughput nanofabrication. To successfully imprint a nano-sized pattern, the process conditions such as temperature, pressure, and time should be appropriately selected. This starts with a clear understanding of polymer material behavior during the NIL process. In this work, the squeezing of thin polymer films into nanocavities during the thermal NIL has been investigated based upon a two-dimensional viscoelastic finite element analysis in order to understand how the process conditions affect a pattern quality. The simulations have been performed within the viscoelastic plateau region and the stress relaxation effect has been taken into account.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.9 s.240
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• pp.1169-1174
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• 2005

Imprint lithography is a promising method for high-resolution and high-throughput lithography using low-cost equipment. In particular, ultraviolet-nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) is applicable to large area imprint easily. We have proposed a new UV-NIL process using an elementwise patterned stamp (EPS), which consists of a number of elements, each of which is separated by channel. Experiments on UV-NIL are performed on an EVG620-NIL using the EPS with 3mm channel width. The replication of uniform sub 70 nm lines using the EPS is demonstrated. We investigate the nonuniformity of residual layer caused by wafer deformation in experiment with varying wafer thickness. Severely deformed wafer works as an obstacle in spreading of dropped resin, which causes nonuniformity of thickness of residual layer. Numerical simulations are conducted to analyze aforementioned phenomenon. Wafer deformation in the process is simulated by using a simplified model, which is a good agreement with experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.513-520
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• 2011

The NIL processes have been studied to implement low cost, high throughput and high resolution application. A RNIL(roller NIL) is an alternative approach to flat nanoimprint lithography. RNIL process is necessary to transfer patterns on flexible substrates. Compared with flat NIL, RNIL has the advantages of better uniformity, less pressing force, and the ability to repeat the patterning process continuously on a large substrate. This paper studies the design, construction and verification of a thermal RNIL system. The proposed RNIL system can easily adopt the flat shaped hot plate which is one of the most important technologies for NIL. The NIL system can be used to transfer patterns from a flexible stamp to a flexible substrate, from a flexible stamp to a Si substrate, and from a roller stamp to a flexible substrate, etc. Patterning on flexible substrates is one of the key technologies to produce bendable displays, solar cells and other applications.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.177-184
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• 2005

The molecular dynamics simulation of nanoimprint lithography (NIL) using $SiO_2$ stamp and amorphous poly-(methylmethacrylate) (PNMA) film is performed to study pattern transfer in NIL. Force fields including bond, angle, torsion, van der Waals and electrostatic potential are used to describe the intermolecular and intramolecular force of PMMA molecules and $SiO_2$ stamp. Nose-Hoover thermostat is used to control the system temperature and cell multipole method is adopted to treat long range interactions. The deformation of PMMA film is observed during pattern transfer in the NIL process. For the detail analysis of deformation characteristics, the distributions of density and stress in PMHA film are calculated. The adhesion and friction forces are obtained by dividing the PMMA film into subregions and calculating the interacting force between subregion and stamp. Their effects on the pattern transfer are also discussed as varying the indentation depth and speed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.63-66
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• 2005

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) process at room temperature has been newly proposed in recent years to overcome the shape accuracy and sticking problem induced in a conventional NIL process. Success of the room temperature NIL relies on the accurate understand of the mechanical behavior of the polymer. Since a conventional NIL process has to heat a polymer above the glass transition temperature to deform the physical shape of the polymer with a mold pattern, viscoelastic property of polymer have major effect on the NIL process. However, rate dependent behavior of polymer is important in the room temperature NIL process because a mold with engraved patterns is rapidly pressed onto a substrate coated with the polymer by the hydraulic equipment. In this paper, finite element analysis of the room temperature NIL process is performed with considering the strain rate dependent behavior of the polymer. The analyses with the variation of imprinting speed and imprinting pattern are carried out in order to investigate the effect of such process parameters on the room temperature NIL process. The analyses results show that the deformed shape and imprint force is quite different with the variation of punch speed because the dynamic behavior of the polymer is considered with the rate dependent plasticity model. The results provide a guideline for the determination of process conditions in the room temperature NIL process.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.223-230
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• 2006

The reliability of imprint patterns molded by stamps for industrial application of nanoimprint lithography (NIL), is an important issue. Usually, defects can be produced by incomplete filling of negative patterns and the shrinkage phenomenon of polymers in conventional NIL. In this paper, the patterns that undergo a varied temperature or varied pressure period during the thermal NIL process have been investigated, with the goal of resolving the shrinkage and defective filling problems of polymers. The effects on the formation of polymer patterns in several profiles of imprint processes are also studied. Consequently, it is observed that more precise patterns are formed by the varied temperature (VT-NIL) or varied pressure (VP-NIL). The NIL (VT-NIL or VP-NIL) process has a free space compensation effect on the polymers in stamp cavities. From the results of the experiments, the polymer's filling capability can be improved. The VT-NIL is merged with the VP-NIL for the better filling property. The patterns that have been imprinted in the merged NIL are compared with the results of conventional NIL. In this study, the improvement in the reliability for results of thermal NIL has been achieved.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.19-23
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• 2010

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is one of the most versatile and promising technology for micro/nano-patterning due to its simplicity, high throughput and low cost. Recently, one of the major trends of NIL is large-area patterning. Especially, the research of the application of NIL to TFT-LCD field has been increasing. Technical difficulties to keep the uniformity of the residual layer, however, become severer as the imprinting area increases. In this paper we performed a numerical study for a large area NIL (the $2^nd$ generation TFT-LCD glass substrate ($370{\times}470$ mm)) by using finite element method. First, a simple model considering the surrounding wall was established in order to simulate effectively and reduce the computing time. Then, the volume of fluid (VOF) and grid deformation method were utilized to calculate the free surfaces of the resist flow based on an Eulerian grid system. From the simulation, the velocity fields and the imprinting pressure during the filling process in the NIL were analyzed, and the effect of the surrounding wall and the uniformity of residual layer were investigated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.131-132
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• 2007

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.491-492
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• 2010