Sacrificial film-assisted nanoimprint lithography

We have demonstrated a nanopattterning technique that combines the use of sacrificial film and nanoimprint lithography. The sacrificial film serves as a ‘transient substrate’ during the nanoimprinting steps. The use of a sacrificial film improves the patterning yield significantly because the de-molding is achieved by etching off the sacrificial film, instead of a mechanical de-molding as in conventional nanoimprint lithography. This patterning technique is an easy method to build up multilayer structure from a single type of polymer. The method is also highly versatile; both substrate supported and freestanding nanostructures can be easily achieved by this technique.