Study on hybrid nanoimprint resists containing diazoketo group

Abstract

A Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is the one of the promising nanolithographic techniques with low cost, simple process, and great precision. We propose the novel hybrid resists containing diazoketo group for high performance of the NIL process. Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS), which induce high thermal stability and good mechanical property, is modified to diazoketo derivative as the photosensitive part. The obtained hybrid resists possess a variety of characteristics desirable for UV-NIL, such as high sensitivity ( 25 - 60 mJ/cm2 ), high young’s modulus ( 4.6 - 9.4 GPa ), low volumetric shrinkage ( 4.8 - 6.9 % ) , good release property, and high transparency to UV light. In addition, the photo polymerization can be performed under UV irradiation in normal atmosphere without any additives. Based on these characteristics, the optimized components are evaluated as UV-NIL test. Furthermore, The cured hybrid resists is adequate as a mold for the NIL-process. Transparent replica molds with 250 nm size features were reproducibly duplicated by using UV-NIL with commercial UV-curing resin.