Numerical Study on Thermal Design of a Large-Area Hot Plate with Heating and Cooling Capability for Thermal Nanoimprint Lithography

A numerical study is conducted on the thermal performance of a large-area hot plate specifically designed as a heating and cooling tool for thermal nanoimprint lithography processes. The hot plate has the dimensions 240 mm × 240 mm × 20 mm, in which a series of cartridge heaters and cooling holes are installed. Stainless steel has been selected to endure the high molding pressures. A numerical model based on ANSYS Fluent is employed to predict the thermal behavior of the hot plate in both the heating and cooling phases. The proportional–integral–derivative (PID) thermal control of the device is modeled by adding user defined functions. The results of the numerical computations demonstrate that the use of cartridge heaters provides sufficient heat-up performance and the active liquid cooling in the cooling holes provides the required cool-down performance. However, a crucial technical issue is raised, namely that the proposed design poses a large temperature non-uniformity in the steady heating phase and in the transient cooling phase. As a remedy, a new hot plate in which heat pipes are installed in the cooling holes is considered. The numerical results show that the installation of heat pipes could enhance the temperature uniformity both in the heating and cooling phases.