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Substrate Conformal Imprint Lithography (SCIL™), developed within Philips Research, is a large area
replication technology, which allows flexible nano-imprinting, even around defects. It uses templates (stamps) with a
high modulus poly(dimethyl)siloxane (PDMS) pattern layer bonded onto a glass sheet with a low modulus PDMS
intermediary layer. This template sheet is attached to a grooved vacuum plate. By sequentially pressurizing and
evacuating the grooves, controlled contact with the resist layer and smooth release after resist curing can be established.
The PDMS stamps are cast from a nanostructured silicon wafer, which serves as the template master.
Charged Particle Nanopatterning (CHARPAN) techniques based on ion multi-beam projection techniques,
establish a promising route for generating such nanometer resolution template masters. 2D structures have been written
in the CHARPAN tool using Hydrogen (H3+) ions in a high resolution negative tone e-beam resist, Hydrogen
Silsesquioxane (HSQ). The CHARPAN tool can also be operated with heavier sputter ions (Ar+, Xe+ etc.) enabling
maskless and resistless 3D direct nanopatterning of a silicon template master.
CHARPAN generated 2D and 3D template masters, the PDMS stamps cast from these masters and the resulting
SCIL imprinted structures, show that at least a 20 nm resolution is feasible for this particular combination of
technologies. The combination of CHARPAN and SCIL opens up new possibilities for low cost, fast and flexible 2D and
3D manufacturing of nano-devices in several application fields, e.g. in life sciences related test structures and devices.
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