Comparison of quartz and silicon as a master mold substrate for patterned media UV-NIL replica process

Abstract

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a promising candidate technology to fabricate patterned media for the next generation hard disk drives (HDD). The requirement of pattern pitch for the HDD or discrete-track recording (DTR) media will be as small as from 40 to 50nm by 2011 or 2012. However not only to create such fine pitch but also long e-beam writing time such as 1week with conventional high resolution resist ZEP520A are critical. This paper addresses the fabrication processes to combine silicon substrate and a new chemically amplified resist (CAR) for the master molds of this NIL. The e-beam writing speed with this new CAR was achieved over 3-times faster while 50nm fine DTR patterns were demonstrated with rotary stage e-beam writer. Furthermore, the replication with J-FIL from the master mold into quartz working mold was also demonstrated.