Low temperature fabrication of residue-free polymer patterns on flexible polymer substrate

Low temperature imprinting on various substrates is essential for applying nanoimprint lithography (NIL) to the patterning process of largearea substrates with low thermal resistance. In addition, the imprinting resist must be distributed uniformly over a large area with near-zero residue imprinting to reduce the level of pattern damage during the residue removal process. In this study, thermal imprinting with a poly(benzyl methacrylate) (PBMA) resist, which can be coated uniformly over a large-area substrate by spin-coating and imprinted at low temperatures, was used to form micro- to nano-sized patterns. The PBMA patterns with a near-zero residual layer could be formed on the substrate using the partial-filling method. Using this imprinting technique, nano-sized PBMA patterns with a minimized residual layer were transferred to a Si wafer and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) film with dimensions 50 × 50mm². Metal patterns, as small as 70 nm, were fabricated on the substrate using this imprinting and lift-off process.