Impacts of Mold Geometries and Imprinted Resist Thickness on Velocity Fields for Nanoimprint Lithography

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of various mold geometries and imprinted resist thickness on the velocity of imprinted resist through theoretical models and numerical simulations during thermal nanoimprint lithography. In simulations, the lateral and vertical velocity distributions are performed under various cavity half-widths, convexity half-widths, and resist thicknesses. Furthermore, the mean and maximum lateral velocities, located at cavity sidewall, and the mean vertical velocity, located at convexity surface, can be calculated by statistics analysis in numerical simulations. In this work, the simulations and theoretical models provide a deep understanding of polymer flow, affected by mold geometries and imprinted resist thickness.