Stencil Lithography for Scalable Micro- and Nanomanufacturing

Abstract

Abstract:In this paper, we review the current development of stencil lithography for scalable micro-and nanomanufacturing as a resistless and reusable patterning technique. We first introduce the motivation and advantages of stencil lithography for large-area micro-and nanopatterning. Then we review the progress of using rigid membranes such as SiNx and Si as stencil masks as well as stacking layers. We also review the current use of flexible membranes including a compliant SiNx membrane with springs, polyimide film, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer, and photoresist-based membranes as stencil lithography masks to address problems such as blurring and non-planar surface patterning. Moreover, we discuss the dynamic stencil lithography technique, which significantly improves the patterning throughput and speed by moving the stencil over the target substrate during deposition. Lastly, we discuss the future advancement of stencil lithography for a resistless, reusable, scalable, and programmable nanolithography method.

Micropatterning and nanopatterning with polymeric materials for advanced biointerface‐controlled systems

“…Stencil lithography is a shadow‐mask patterning technique which fabricates structures down to sub‐100 nm by directly depositing materials through a shadow mask (nano‐scale stencils) with nanometer sized apertures . Stencil lithography can offer both additive and subtractive patterning of metal, dielectric, organic and bio‐components (such as proteins or cells) on a wide range of dimensions (from millimeters to nanometers).…”

A Novel Large‐Scale, Multilayer, and Facilely Aligned Micropatterning Technique Based on Flexible and Reusable SU‐8 Shadow Masks

“…The potential of shadow masks for a broad range of materials, processes, and applications has been demonstrated by numerous reports in the last decades. The shadow masks for micro‐ and nanopatterning are usually made of thin metals, metallic alloys, and ceramic foils such as Si, SiN, Ni, permalloy, AlOx, and stainless steel with openings fabricated using micromachining, chemical etching, or laser ablation . However, these shadow masks are normally rigid and brittle, requiring complicated and expensive processing steps.…”

Mask aligner for ultrahigh vacuum with capacitive distance control

“…Some UHV-based methods for nanostructuring are even more focused to a particular material as, e.g., the defect charging of BN below graphene 19 , which recently enabled ultraclean graphene quantum dots of mesoscopic size to be probed by STM 20 . A more versatile alternative for UHV nanostructuring is shadow mask evaporation, also called stencil lithography 21 .…”

“…This approach avoids an initial touching of the mask to the sample and requires less instrumental complexity than the SFM based technique. Lateral movement of the substrate relative to the mask (dynamical stencil lithography) 21 , is enabled by an additional, horizontal piezo motor. We show that sub-100 nm edge sharpness is possible with this UHV mask aligner, while edge sharpness partly goes down to 10 nm.…”