Polymer Stamps for Imprinting Nanopatterns in Polymer Substrate.

Using a silicone or metallic stamp for imprinting multiscale patterns comprising micro down to nanoscale patterns into polymer substrates often results in significant deformation in the molded substrate and loss of pattern transfer fidelity for nanopatterns. In the worst case, the expensive stamp can also be damaged. One method to reduce the problem is to use polymer as the stamp material, which will reduce both adhesion and thermal stress generated at the stamp/substrate interface. In this paper, stamps made of three different polymer materials, i.e., polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), PPGDA-based UV resin and TPGDA-based UV-resin, were fabricated from the same master containing nanofluidic structures and the replication fidelity from the master, polymer stamps, to thermal-imprinted poly(methyl methacrylate) substrate (PMMA) was compared. The largest loss of pattern fidelity occurs in the thermal imprinting step. Polymer stamps with higher Young's moduli result in a better fidelity in pattern transfer. With TPGDA-based UV resin stamps, multiscale structures with a nanochannel with minimum width and height of -70 nm can be imprinted onto PMMA substrate together with macro-scale patterns by a single nanoimprinting processes.