• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.268-273
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• 2009

Ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL), which is performed at a low pressure and at room temperature, is known as a low cost method for the fabrication of nano-scale patterns. In the patterning process, maintaining the uniformity of the residual layer is critical as the pattern transfer of features to the substrate must include the timed etch of the residual layer prior to the etching of the transfer layer. In pursuit of a thin and uniform residual layer thickness, the initial volume and the position of each droplet both need to be optimized. However, the monomer mixtures of resin had a tendency to evaporate. The evaporation rate depends on not only time, but also the initial volume of the monomer droplet. In order to decide the initial volume of each droplet, the accurate prediction of evaporation behavior is required. In this study, the theoretical model of the evaporation behavior of resin droplets was developed and compared with the available experimental data in the literature. It is confirmed that the evaporation rate of a droplet is not proportional to the area of its free surface, but to the length of its contact line. Finally, the parameter of the developed theoretical model was calculated by curve fitting to decide the initial volume of resin droplets.

• 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.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.37-42
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• 2012

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) has attracted broad interest as a low cost method to define nanometer scale patterns in recent years. A major disadvantage of thermal NIL is the thermal cycle, that is, heating over glass transition temperature and then cooling below it, which requires a significant amount of processing time and limits the throughput. One of the methods to overcome this disadvantage is to improve the cooling performance in NIL process. In this paper, the performance of the cooling system of thermal NIL is numerically investigated by SolidWorks Flow Simulation program. The calculated temperatures of nanoimprint device were verified by the measurements. By using the analysis model, the effects of the change of flow velocity and cooler location on the cooling performance are investigated. For the 6 cases (0.1 m/s, 0.5 m/s, 1 m/s, 3 m/s, 5 m/s, 10 m/s) of flow velocity and for the 6 cases of distances (50 mm, 40 mm, 30 mm, 20 mm, 10 mm, 1 mm) of cooler location, the heat conjugated flow analyses are performed and discussed.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.74-80
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• 2016

This study presents a thermal device specially designed for thermal nanoimprint lithography equipments, which requires the capability of rapid heating and cooling, high temperature uniformity and the material strength to endure high stamping pressure. The proposal to meet these requirements is a planar-type hot plate extensible to a large area, in which long circular cartridge heaters and heat pipes are installed inside in parallel. The heat pipes are connected to the outside water cooling chamber. A hot plate made of stainless steel is fabricated with a dimension $240mm{\times}240mm{\times}20mm$. Laboratory experiments are conducted to examine the thermal performance of the hot plate. The results illustrate that the employment of heat pipes leads to a notable enhancement of temperature uniformity in the device and provides an efficient heat delivery from the hot plate to outside. It is verified that the suggested hot plate could be a feasible thermal tool for thermal nanoimprint lithography, satisfying the major design requirements.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2375-2380
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• 2008

Controlling of thermal environment and flow in nanoimprint process chamber is important to ensure high precision levels of products. The purpose of this paper is to build optimal nanoimprint process environment. Because of this, Optimum PI control parameter for precise temperature control has been examined. Also porous medium of ventilation system is simulated for uniform flow in the equipment chamber. The porous medium consists of mesh structure, and is installed to place which flow the influx of the air flows. PID control parameter is based on the data obtained by experiment. And then heating and cooling method which simultaneously operated was used for decreasing an error. In conclude temperature in the equipment chamber was able to control precisely in the range of ${\pm}0.1^{\circ}C$ by the PID control parameter and Deadband.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.8-15
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• 2018

Films with special properties (e.g., water-repellent films, optical films, anti-reflection films, and flexible films) are referred to as functional films. Recently, there has been interest in fine patterning methods for film fabrication. In particular there have been many studies that use a UV nanoimprint process involving a UV curing method. In this paper, a polymer film was fabricated by the UV nanoimprint process with a micro-pattern, and its durability was evaluated by a wear test and a nano-indentation test. The film mechanical properties (such as coefficient of friction, hardness, and modulus of elasticity) were measured. Moreover, the choice of PUA type resin used in the UV nanoimprint process was confirmed to impact the durability of the thin film. Despite making the polymer film samples using the same method and PUA type resin, different coefficient of friction, hardness, and modulus of elasticity values were obtained. PUA 4 resin had the most favorable coefficient of friction, hardness, and modulus of elasticity. This material is predicted to produce a high durability functional film.