Sub-30 nm Plasmonic Nanostructures by Soft UV Nanoimprint Lithography

Abstract

The capability to fabricate nanostructures of high density and high resolution over large areas is important point for fundamental and applied research as subwavelength optical nanostructures, optoelectronics and biosensors [1–5]. Various lithographic techniques such as focused ion beam lithography [6] and electron beam lithography [7, 8] are mainly used to pattern sub-100 nm structures on large surfaces. However, these two techniques are slow to obtain these surfaces and their equipments are expensive. Moreover, charge effect on insulating surface can alter the regularity of the pattern shape. Thus, these techniques will not be suitable for a mass production. In addition, alternative methods emerged in the past decades, and are not very expensive and fast to realize high density nanostructures. Moreover, these methods offer a better compatibility for biology and chemical applications [9, 10]. One of these recent techniques is the soft UV Nanoimprint Lithography, which is very promising for the periodic nanostructures fabrication with a high density and high resolution on large surfaces for a reasonable cost [11, 12]. However, a limiting factor of UV-NIL is the resolution of the fabricated molds [13, 14]. In soft UV-NIL, cast molding processes are used for flexible mold realization. An advantage of the soft UV-NIL technique is the obtaining of a great patterns homogeneity on a large zone. This chapter proposes to present in details the soft UV-NIL and its use for the fabrication of sub-30 nm plasmonic structure on large area.