Development of hard-mask resist materials in nanoimprint lithography

Hard mask resist material on photoreactive underlayer material was investigated to modify the film surface chemical adhesion between resist material and photoreactive underlayer material during ultraviolet irradiation of nanoimprint lithography. This procedure is proven to be suitable for resist material design and the process conditions of ultraviolet curing nanoimprint lithography for the reduction of defect numbers by template contamination when the template was removed from the hard mask resist after ultraviolet irradiation. The developed hard mask type silicon resist material with ultraviolet crosslinking epoxy groups produced high resolutions (80 nm) at a good aspect ratio, and excellent patterning dimensional accuracy by the replication (number of cycles: 32). The newly resist material and the process conditions are expected as one of the defect less nanoimprint lithographic technologies in next generation electronic devices.