Submicron three-dimensional structures fabricated by reverse contact UV nanoimprint lithography

Abstract

The fabrication of a three-dimensional multilayered nanostructure is demonstrated with a newly developed nanofabrication technique, namely, reverse contact ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography. This technique is a combination of reverse nanoimprint lithography and contact ultraviolet lithography. In this process, a UV cross-linkable polymer and a thermoplastic polymer are spin coated onto a patterned hybrid metal-quartz stamp. These thin polymer films are then transferred from the stamp to the substrate by contact at a suitable temperature and pressure. The whole assembly is then exposed to UV light. After separation of the stamp and the substrate, the unexposed polymer areas are rinsed away with acetone leaving behind the negative features of the original stamp with no residual layer.

Nanoimprint Lithography: Toward Functional Photonic Crystals

“…The stamp holding the resist is then pressed onto a substrate and exposed to UV light. After demolding, the unexposed resist is rinsed away with a solvent revealing the grating [64]. Process reiterations allow the growth of patterned multilayers to form 3D structures like the one shown in Fig.…”

“…This technique easily allows three-dimensional structures by multiple patterning [63][64][65]. In the process shown in the left panel of Fig.…”

Nanoimprint Lithography

“…5. Reverse UV contact NIL process (Kehagias et al, 2006) www.intechopen.com al., 2006). Combined the UV-curable reverse NIL process with a water soluable PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) based removable template and home made UV-curable glue, Lee's team implement the successful fabrication of multi-stacked 2D nano patterned slabs on various substrates including flexible polymer film.…”

“…Furthermore, the crucial advantage of this technique is the possibility to construct threedimensional device-like structures without having to etch polymer residual layer at any intermediate step. Some devices such as three-dimensional photonic crystals, multi-layered nano-channels, polymer optical devices, gold gratings (metallic nanostructures) have been fabricated using the reverse NIL process or the combination of the reverse imprint process and other micro-fabrication technologies (Guo, 2004, Kehagias et al, 2006, Han et al, 2007. Fig.5 shows the schematics of a reverse UV contact NIL for 3D Nanofabrication (Kehagias et Fig.…”

Lasing in nanoimprinted two-dimensional photonic crystal band-edge lasers

“…12,13 For instance, an important number of photonic components fabricated by NIL have recently been demonstrated, such as a wavelength filter based on a Bragg grating on a waveguide, 14 a micro-ring resonator, 15 1D and 2D band-edge lasers, [16][17][18] and photonic crystals for light extraction applications. 19,20 In this work, we have achieved twodimensional polymer photonic crystal band-edge lasers fabricated by nanoimprint lithography in a dye-loaded printable polymer in a single fabrication step. The devices exhibit lasing oscillations at the different C-point band edge frequencies.…”