Water-soluble polymer templates are replicated from surface patterns by spin-casting a poly(vinyl alcohol) film-forming solution that undergoes a room-temperature evaporation process to solidify in less than 1 min with lateral resolution of sub-100 nm. The patterned polymer templates are deposited with metal and coupled to substrate surfaces by methods that may include photocurable materials, two-component reaction systems, or direct bonding without an intervening adhesion layer. Water is used to dissolve the flexible polymer templates at the conclusion of the transfer process.
Templates for imprint lithography and MxL (molecular transfer lithography) are generated by adhesion of a spin-cast film of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to a carrier comprised of materials selected for conformability or distortion reduction. Template formation using both polymeric carrier materials and rigid materials, including quartz and glass carrier materials, is demonstrated. The absence of a carrier material altogether to form a suspended thin film is shown to be feasible. The rigid template material is formed by bonding the PVA patterned film to a rigid carrier while still connected to the master pattern, and it is demonstrated that separation occurs at the PVA-silicon master pattern interface. Form factors for the templates include a 25mm×25mm patterned film attached to a 65mm×65mm glass substrate, a full 100 mm pattern bonded to a quartz substrate, and a 100 mm mask of Mylar™ bonded with a patterned PVA film for MxL applications. These carrier materials are developed in a form factor compatible with commercial nanoimprint lithography tools, and for standard contact aligners adapted to perform MxL processing.
We report a facile method for creating nanoscopic oxide structures over large areas that is capable of producing high aspect ratio nanoscale structures with feature sizes below 50 nm. A variety of nanostructured oxides including TiO(2), SnO(2) and organosilicates are formed using sol-gel and nanoparticle precursors by way of molding with water-soluble polymeric templates generated from silicon masters. Sequential stacking techniques are developed that generate unique 3-dimensional nanostructures with combinatorially mixed geometries, scales, and materials. Applicable to a variety of substrates, this scalable method allows access to a broad range of new thin film morphologies for applications in devices, catalysts, and functional surface coatings.
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