Safe separation for nano imprinting
AssigneesCanon Nanotechnologies, Inc., Molecular Imprints, Inc.
InventorsSe-Hyuk Im, Mahadevan GanapathiSubramanian, Edward Brian Fletcher, Niyaz Khusnatdinov, Gerard M. Schmid, Mario Johannes Meissl, Anshuman Cherala, Frank Y. Xu, Byung-Jin Choi, Sidlgata V. Sreenivasan
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Abstract
Control of lateral strain and lateral strain ratio (dt/db) between template and substrate through the selection of template and/or substrate thicknesses (Tt and/or Tb), control of template and/or substrate back pressure (Pt and/or Pb), and/or selection of material stiffness are described.
Claims27
In a nanoimprint lithography system, a method comprising:
- providing a template in contact with a formed patterned layer on a substrate, the template and the substrate having lateral strains dt and db associated therewith, respectively, when subjected to a separation force;
- determining the difference between the lateral strains dt and db by either (i) measuring the lateral strain values during an initial separation, or (ii) modeling the lateral strain values during a theoretical separation to determine the difference between the dt and db values;
- based on the determined differences, determining the back pressure values which may be applied to the template, the substrate, or both such that the lateral strains dt and db are brought into a matching condition;
- adjusting the lateral strain of the template (dt) or the substrate (db) or both, while the template remains in contact with the formed patterned layer on the substrate, by applying the determined back pressure or pressures to the template or to the substrate or to both such that the lateral strains dt and db are matched when the template and substrate are subjected to the separation force;
- and
- applying the separation force to separate the template from the substrate while the determined back pressure or back pressures are applied to the template or to the substrate or both.
An imprint lithography method for separating an imprint lithography template from a patterned layer formed by contacting the imprint lithography template with a formable material deposited on a substrate and solidifying the formable material to form the patterned layer such that the template and the substrate have lateral strains dt and db associated therewith, respectively, when subsequently subjected to a separation force, the method comprising:
- determining the differences between lateral strains dt and db using an analytical model and/or finite element analysis;
- based on the determined differences between lateral strains dt and db, determining the amount of back pressure to apply to the template, the substrate, or both, such that the lateral strains dt and db become matched when subjected to the separation force;
- applying the determined amount of back pressure to the template, the substrate, or both while the template remains in contact with the formed patterned layer;
- and
- applying the separation force to separate the template from the formed patterned layer.
An imprint lithography method for separating an imprint lithography template from a patterned layer formed by contacting the imprint lithography template with a formable material deposited on a substrate and solidifying the formable material to form the patterned layer such that the template and the substrate have lateral strains dt and db associated therewith, respectively, when subsequently subjected to a separation force, the method comprising:
- determining the differences between lateral strains dt and db using an analytical model and/or finite element analysis;
- based on the determined differences between lateral strains dt and db, determining the amount of back pressure to apply to the template, the substrate, or both, such that the ratio of lateral strains (dt/db) is approximately 1 when subjected to the separation force;
- applying the determined amount of back pressure to the template, the substrate, or both while the template remains in contact with the formed patterned layer;
- and
- applying the separation force to separate the template from the formed patterned layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.