Charged Particle Nanopatterning (CHARPAN) of 2D and 3D masters for flexible replication in Substrate Conformal Imprint Lithography (SCIL)

Recently, the first generation programmable Aperture Plate System with integrated CMOS electronics (CMOS-APS) featuring 43 thousand switchable beams has been inserted into a Charged Particle Nanopatterning (CHARPAN) tool. Using this configuration, the first (2D) exposure results in Hydrogen Silsesquioxane (HSQ) resist, employing 10 key Hydrogen ion (H(3)) parallel beams of 12.5 nm spot size, show that (at least) a 20 nm resolution is feasible in this system. These CHARPAN patterns have been used as masters for PDMS stamp casting. The flexible PDMS stamps have been implemented in Substrate Conformal Imprint Lithography (SCIL (TM)). The original 20 nm resolution features have also been observed in the imprinted sol-gel material. The CHARPAN tool can be operated with heavier ions (Ar(+), Xe(+)) as well, enabling maskless and resistless 3D nanopatterning. Here again, a flexible PDMS stamp has been cast and these deep 3D structures have been successfully applied in SCIL. The combination of CHARPAN and SCIL opens up new possibilities for low cost, fast and flexible 2D and 3D manufacturing of nano-devices. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.