Nanoimprint Lithography can be a cost-effective way for fast and accurate replication of nanostructures. Quality and high repeatability are key factors for the technique to be cost effective in the end. In-wafer and wafer-to-wafer variations of the imprinted nanostructures should be minimal while the stamp life should be as long as possible without compromising on quality.
SCIL uses an inorganic sol-gel based resist that is not susceptible to aging and shows low to no haze with only little shrinkage after curing. Furthermore the resist doesn’t require heating or UV light for curing which is very beneficial for quality and repeatability which allows for a superior overlay alignment accuracy. Because of the technique used in combination with the resist and stamp materials it is also possible to directly imprint functional materials without the need of transfer etching into a substrate.
SCIL Nanoimprint solutions not only provides machines and materials but provides a complete solution. With her own application lab and 2 high-volume production machines SCIL helps to optimize the processes from proof of concept up to pilot and high-volume production.
Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a technology that can deliver cost effective fabrication of patterns from 10’s of microns, down to sub-micron and nano-patterns (<10 nm) on large areas. Currently two application areas are of great interest for NIL. Accurate wafer scale overlay alignment and the reproducibility in replicating patterns with less than 1nm variation on their absolute size. This is important for nanophotonic applications such as augmented reality and metalenses. . In this contribution, we will show advanced overlay data on 200 and 300 mm wafers. A novel high contrast alignment marker set was developed and used to automatically inspect up to 70.000 cross-in-box overlay markers on a 300 mm wafer. The markers are designed to have a high contrast which enables a robust automatic pattern recognition and a ~100 nm measurement accuracy.A 200mm wafer with metalenses and blazed grating metasurface, designed at 532nm wavelength, is used to validate the sensitivity of scatterometry on the imprint mask. These metalenses are produced by imprinting a silica NanoGlass etch mask and subsequent ICP/RIE transfer etch in a niobium-pentoxide layer of 800 nm thickness.
Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a technology that can deliver cost effective fabrication of pattern from 10’s of microns, down to sub-micron and nano-patterns (<10nm) on large areas. Substrate Conformal Imprint Lithography (SCIL) solves the limitations of soft-stamp based NIL techniques (resolution, pattern deformation, overlay) and allows low-pressure wafer scale conformal contact and sub-10 nm resolution in direct patterned optically functional inorganic resist systems (RI up to 2.1).
Using a novel scatterometry method we verify the reproducible patterning of sub-micron gratings to +/- 1nm.
Our latest FabSCIL cluster offers processing of 200 and 300mm wafers, from 300 microns up to 2.5mm thickness, overlay accuracy below 1 micron, even with full automated overlay alignment of patterns directly from the front to the backside of the wafer. In the contribution we will elaborate on the material systems, reproducibility and production solutions.
Nano-photonic applications are on the brink of disrupting the optics we know. Examples are augmented reality glasses based on diffractive waveguide combiners (DWC) using surface relief gratings and meta-lenses consisting of high aspect ratio pillars. The challenge will be fabricating 100’s of millions of these large area devices with high yield and low cost. In this paper we will demonstrate the direct replication of nano-photonic patterns using a nanoimprint method in combination with inorganic functional optical resist materials. SCIL Nanoimprint solutions always developed the materials, processes and nanoimprint hardware as an integral system for optimal results. The same imprint technology scales from 100mm up to 300mm wafers. A unique approach of SCIL is to directly pattern inorganic materials with single-nm precision and keep this accuracy for over the full stamp lifetime. For nanophotonic applications the direct replication of nano-patterning in materials with a high refractive index (1.7 – 2.0) is highly desired. With this slow and expensive process steps such as optical- and hard mask layer deposition and reactive ion etching of these materials after the lithography step can be omitted. As another example augmented reality glasses with a high efficiency require 3 slanted gratings with varying orientations, resulting in 2 additional lithography and etching steps. We will show the direct nanoimprint patterning of slanted gratings in all orientations with a refractive index up to n=1.92 (@550nm). For these nano-photonic devices to work within specification, the absolute size of the patterns needs to be within 1-5nm variation and the refractive index to be controlled to the 3rd decimal (depending on the application). To verify the full nanoimprint production process in a close-coupled manner a fast non-destructive test method based on Fourier imaging scatterometry will be introduced. This method can determine the relevant sub-micron feature sizes with single nmprecision.
Many applications across photonics and semiconductor industries require the fabrication of nanostructures with non-trivial geometries with a precision and reproducibility down to the nanometer scale. Slanted gratings and metamaterials are examples of such designs that have vast applications in Augmented Reality and LiDAR. State-of-the-art lithography techniques, such as nanoimprint lithography or UV lithography, can provide such levels of fabrication precision for high-volume production. However, a rapid in-line quality inspection method for such complex patterns is required to monitor the fabrication process, verify the sample quality, and to ensure reproducibility. Here, we demonstrate a novel technique that allows us to inspect the quality of the samples in a non-destructive and fast manner, and to extract geometrical parameters of the nanostructures over large areas, generating spatial variations maps across wafers.
We demonstrate the strong coupling between excitons in organic molecules and all-dielectric metasurfaces supporting Mie surface lattice resonances (MSLRs). MSLRs have extended mode volumes and large quality factors, which enables to achieve collective strong coupling with large coupling strengths and Rabi energies. Moreover, due to the electric and magnetic character of the MSLR given by the Mie resonance, we show that the hybridization of the exciton with the MSLR results in exciton-polaritons that inherit this character as well. Our results demonstrate the potential of all-dielectric metasurfaces as novel platform to investigate and manipulate exciton-polaritons in low-loss polaritonic devices.
Substrate Conformal Imprint Lithography (SCIL) solves the limitations of PDMS soft-stamp based NIL techniques (resolution, pattern deformation, overlay) and allows low-pressure wafer scale conformal contact and sub-10 nm resolution using a novel silicone rubber stamp. SCIL demonstrated direct replication of sub-50nm patterns in silica over 200mm wafers with stamp lifetimes over 500 imprints. The evaluation of patterns on wafer scale is usually done by SEM or AFM, and not amendable to inline inspection. We will demonstrate a novel compact optical quality inspection method for nanophotonic components, based on Fourier microscopy (imaging the back-focal plane of objective lens). In combination with inverse modeling, we reach few-nanometer precision for periodic structures.
Substrate Conformal Imprint Lithography (SCIL) solves the limitations of PDMS soft-stamp based NIL techniques (resolution, pattern deformation, overlay) and allows low-pressure wafer scale conformal contact and sub-10 nm resolution using a novel silicone rubber stamp.
SCIL demonstrated direct replication of sub-50nm patterns in silica over 200mm wafers with stamp lifetimes over 500 imprints. (Moxtek, NNT 2019) The evaluation of patterns on wafer scale is usually done by SEM or AFM, and not amendable to inline inspection. We will demonstrate a novel compact optical quality inspection method for nanophotonic components, based on Fourier microscopy (imaging the back-focal plane of objective lens). In combination with inverse modeling, we reach few-nanometer precision for periodic structures.
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