Press and release imprint: Control of the flexible mold deformation and the local variation of residual layer thickness in soft UV-NIL

We report on a two step soft UV nanoimprint process termed “Press and Release Imprint (PRI) that enables the reduction of both the mold deformation and the local variation of the residual layer thickness, thereby allowing high fidelity pattern replication with a uniform local residual layer thickness. The effect of imprint pressure on the mold deformation, local variation of residual layer thickness as well as required mold release time has been investigated for microscale patterns in the range of 10–100 μm. The potentials of PRI are demonstrated by high fidelity replication of micro-patterns with a uniform residual layer of minimum thickness.