Low cost, rapid fabrication of durable molds of grating arrays for nanoimprint lithography

This study proposes a new fabrication method for the mold of a sub-micron grating array used in the nanoimprint lithography process. In general, the mold of a sub-micron grating array is fabricated by electron beam lithography (EBL) and reactive ion etching (RIE), and then, nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is used to achieve the required amount of replication. Such a method is expensive and has a low throughput, and the pattern is limited by the original mold. In this paper, we constructed a durable mold of a sub-micron grating array with good adaptability, using a commercial epoxy grating (EG) and a hybrid inorganic/organic sol-gel material combined with nanoimprint lithography and photolithography. Due to its low cost and ease of use, this method is suitable for both laboratory research and mass production without the need for expensive equipment like EBL or RIE.

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