Cargando…

Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) Intermediate Molds for High-Resolution Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography

Among soft lithography techniques, Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography (NIL) is a high-throughput and low-cost process that can be applied to a broad range of thermoplastic materials. By simply applying the appropriate pressure and temperature combination, it is possible to transfer a pattern from a mol...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Masciullo, Cecilia, Sonato, Agnese, Romanato, Filippo, Cecchini, Marco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6116295/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30103377
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano8080609
_version_ 1783351573404975104
author Masciullo, Cecilia
Sonato, Agnese
Romanato, Filippo
Cecchini, Marco
author_facet Masciullo, Cecilia
Sonato, Agnese
Romanato, Filippo
Cecchini, Marco
author_sort Masciullo, Cecilia
collection PubMed
description Among soft lithography techniques, Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography (NIL) is a high-throughput and low-cost process that can be applied to a broad range of thermoplastic materials. By simply applying the appropriate pressure and temperature combination, it is possible to transfer a pattern from a mold surface to the chosen material. Usually, high-resolution and large-area NIL molds are difficult to fabricate and expensive. Furthermore, they are typically made of silicon or other hard materials such as nickel or quartz for preserving their functionality. Nonetheless, after a large number of imprinting cycles, they undergo degradation and become unusable. In this paper, we introduce and characterize an innovative two-step NIL process based on the use of a perfluoropolyether (PFPE) intermediate mold to replicate sub-100 nm features from a silicon mold to the final thermoplastic material. We compare PFPE elastomeric molds with molds made of the standard polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer, which demonstrates better resolution and fidelity of the replica process. By using PFPE intermediate molds, the nanostructured masters are preserved and the throughput of the process is significantly enhanced.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6116295
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2018
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-61162952018-08-31 Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) Intermediate Molds for High-Resolution Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography Masciullo, Cecilia Sonato, Agnese Romanato, Filippo Cecchini, Marco Nanomaterials (Basel) Article Among soft lithography techniques, Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography (NIL) is a high-throughput and low-cost process that can be applied to a broad range of thermoplastic materials. By simply applying the appropriate pressure and temperature combination, it is possible to transfer a pattern from a mold surface to the chosen material. Usually, high-resolution and large-area NIL molds are difficult to fabricate and expensive. Furthermore, they are typically made of silicon or other hard materials such as nickel or quartz for preserving their functionality. Nonetheless, after a large number of imprinting cycles, they undergo degradation and become unusable. In this paper, we introduce and characterize an innovative two-step NIL process based on the use of a perfluoropolyether (PFPE) intermediate mold to replicate sub-100 nm features from a silicon mold to the final thermoplastic material. We compare PFPE elastomeric molds with molds made of the standard polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer, which demonstrates better resolution and fidelity of the replica process. By using PFPE intermediate molds, the nanostructured masters are preserved and the throughput of the process is significantly enhanced. MDPI 2018-08-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6116295/ /pubmed/30103377 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano8080609 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Masciullo, Cecilia
Sonato, Agnese
Romanato, Filippo
Cecchini, Marco
Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) Intermediate Molds for High-Resolution Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography
title Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) Intermediate Molds for High-Resolution Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography
title_full Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) Intermediate Molds for High-Resolution Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography
title_fullStr Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) Intermediate Molds for High-Resolution Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography
title_full_unstemmed Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) Intermediate Molds for High-Resolution Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography
title_short Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) Intermediate Molds for High-Resolution Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography
title_sort perfluoropolyether (pfpe) intermediate molds for high-resolution thermal nanoimprint lithography
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6116295/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30103377
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano8080609
work_keys_str_mv AT masciullocecilia perfluoropolyetherpfpeintermediatemoldsforhighresolutionthermalnanoimprintlithography
AT sonatoagnese perfluoropolyetherpfpeintermediatemoldsforhighresolutionthermalnanoimprintlithography
AT romanatofilippo perfluoropolyetherpfpeintermediatemoldsforhighresolutionthermalnanoimprintlithography
AT cecchinimarco perfluoropolyetherpfpeintermediatemoldsforhighresolutionthermalnanoimprintlithography