Development of a very large-area ultraviolet imprint lithography process

We propose a very large-area ultraviolet imprint lithography process as a promising alternative to expensive conventional optical lithography for the production of display panels. This process uses a large-area hard stamp in a low vacuum environment. The hard quartz stamp is used to achieve high overlay accuracy, and the vacuum environment is required to ensure that air bubble defects do not occur during imprinting. We demonstrate that the quartz stamp with microscale patterns can be used for imprinting 18-in. diagonal substrates via single-step UV imprint in a low vacuum environment to obtain a practical residual layer thickness (RLT) for micro pattern transfer to the substrate. Numerical analysis is performed to clarify the physical phenomena underlying imprint process. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.