Nanofabrication down to 10 nm on a plastic substrate

In this work, we proved the feasibility of nanofabrication down to 10 nm on a plastic substrate with varied fabrication techniques. Durable polyimide sheets (25-200 mu m thick), commercially available as Kapton (R) film, was selected as substrate material with smoothened surface for enhanced resolution and registration in the fabrication process. E-beam lithography at 30 kV of 10 nm grooves and 25 nm metal lift-off were demonstrated for the first time on polyimide. Step-flash imprint of sub 100 nm dense gratings (1:1 ratio) was successfully performed on 2 '' wafer-size polyimide substrate. Directed self-assembly yield gratings of di-block copolymer with 10 nm half-pitch on polyimide. These techniques enable a la carte platforms that can be integrated with traditional semiconductor or flexible electronic processing. As an example, graphene field effect transistor with channel length of 200 nm was fabricated on polyimide with performance comparable to reported high mobility graphene flexible electronics on polyethylene terephthalate plastics. The capability of nano-fabrication down to 10 nm on polyimide paves the way for fundamental studies and scalable fabrication of novel nano-scale materials and devices on plastic substrates. (C) 2011 American Vacuum Society. [DOI: 10.1116/1.3662081]