Technology for Fabrication of Nanostructures by Standard Cleanroom Processing and Nanoimprint Lithography

Sub-micron structures are routinely fabricated by electron beam lithography (EBL). However EBL is a time consuming and costly technology. We present a technology for fabrication of nanostructures by standard UV-lithography and thermal nanoimprint lithography (NIL). NIL-stamps with sub-30 nm patterns are fabricated by standard micrometer resolution cleanroom processing, i.e. UV-lithography, reactive ion etching and thermal oxidation, and the pattern is transferred to a polymer thin film on a substrate by NIL. Subsequently the patterned polymer film is used either as a direct etching mask to transfer the pattern to the substrate or as a metal lift-off mask. This way we have demonstrated the fabrication of sub-100 nm nanochannels in silicon oxide and sub-50 nm gold lines on silicon.